Permaculture Nurseries
Here is a list of some of our favorite nurseries. This list is focused on ethical, unique and permaculture centered nurseries… We are only sharing nurseries that are either friends of ours and we know and trust their work fully or nurseries we purchased from in the past and can vouch for their quality and thoughtfulness. We sell out quickly with our little nursery and would love to know you got what you were hoping for from our friends!
Please tell them we said hello :)
We’re also including a list of seed sources for both annual and perennial plants, and hope to keep adding to this!
Black Creek Farm and Nursery - bcfnursery.com - Our wonderful friend Erik down in the Hudson Valley, NY grows tons and tons of annual food for his region and now is offering amazing and unique nursery stock.
Silver Run Forest Farm - silverrunforestfarm.org/nursery - Good friends down in Virginia growing a wide range of food forest offerings. Wonderful source of permaculture plants that are perfect for warmer climates (and generally hardy to colder areas too).
Perfect Circle Farm - perfectcircle.farm - Located in zone 4 Vermont, Buzz Ferver is a master of grafting, propagating and working with very cold hardy trees and shrubs. We’ve learned a lot from him over the years.
Twisted Tree Farm - twisted-tree.net - Akiva and Sean have developed their nurseries together for the last 10 years. Each evolving down different paths but still overlapping in many many ways. Twisted Tree is an amazing resource for all your hardy food bearing tree and shrub needs, and he offers nice ‘bulk’ options for many plants for planting out larger areas!
Silver Tree Forest - silvertreeforest.com - Friends up in Auburn NY with a nice selection of nursery plants as well as mushroom growing products and more. Not sure if they are shipping but they are an absolute must-know for anyone roughly in the Auburn NY area.
Nuts and Bolts Nursery - www.nutsandboltsnursery.com/shop - Wonderful new nursery in Rhode Island. They are just getting up to speed with inventory but plan to expand quite a bit.
Ort Family Farms - ortfamilyfarm.com - Incredibly wide selection of food forest plants from our friend Roger and family in NY state. They don’t do shipping (yet) but if you are in the Bradford, NY area they have a jaw dropping array of hard to find hardy perennials, trees and shrubs.
Andrews Nursery - https://www.andrewsblendorio.com/andrewsnursery/ - Andrew has come to volunteer and exchange with us over the years and grows really wonderful plants near Utica, NY. Local sales available as well as shipping.
Foggy Blossom Farm - foggyblossomfarm.com - Friends of ours down in Pennsylvania. Wide assortment of lovely plants and some fun other offerings, too, very worth checking out for sure.
Food Forest Farm - foodforestfarm.com - Located just down the road from us, our friends here grow a unique assortment of perennial vegetables and other cool plants that are hard to find elsewhere.
Interwoven Permaculture interwovenpermaculture.com - Folks out in Illinois doing some great permaculture work and propagation. Unique selection of a variety of plants at reasonable prices, and it seems like they are expanding what they do each year.
Edgewood Nursery - edgewood-nursery.com - Wide variety of unusual and hard to find permaculture plants. Very committed to permaculture practices in their nursery.
Tripple Brook Farm - tripplebrookfarm.com - Some of the fun plants we now offer through our nursery originated here (Fuki, Miscanthus, Air Potato, much more). This is one of the most complex and diverse collections of zone 5B perennials we know of, the selection is just massive.
Planting Justice - plantingjustice.org - These folks are in California and have one of the widest selections of interesting permaculture plants we know if. We’ve ordered from them a number of times and are really thrilled with the quality for the price. They also do amazing work with social justice in their area. Very worth supporting.
Quiverwood Nursery - quiverwoodnursery.com - Small tree nursery in our neck of the woods with a nice selection of hardy and reliable trees for the canopy layer of your food forest.
Feralwood Nursery - ardealandproject.com/feralwood-nursery - Down in North Carolina, they have a nice wide selection of food forest plants as bare roots, as well as seeds and cuttings. Great source for warmer places, with a good number of plants that will thrive even for cold weather sites.
Humble Abode Nursery - humbleabodenursery.com - New nursery in MA with a growing collection of great woody perennials that are adapted and productive in cooler climates. Wonderful source for shrub and tree layer permaculture food forest elements.
Hidden Springs Nursery - www.hiddenspringsnursery.com - Down in TN, wide selection of some very unique food forest plants. Their main focus is on the shrub and tree layer and they offer great quality plants for very reasonable prices.
Future Forest Plants Nursery - www.futureforestplants.com/shop - PA based nursery with a very wide selection of super hardy food forest plants.
Black Bird Hollow - www.blackbirdhollow.ca - Great and diverse selection of northern hardy perennials and trees with some very unique and rare offerings in there as well. These folks are in Canada and ship within Canada.
Red Twig Nursery - https://www.etsy.com/shop/RedTwigNursery - Nice wide selection of seeds, cuttings and plants well adapted to colder climates.
Taproot Nursery - www.taprootvt.com - New perennial plant nursery in Vermont. They are just getting up and running but look like they have a really exciting set of offerings coming up!
Mycroba - www.mycroba.com - Mycroba Integrated Systems is a nursery in central California, focused on propagating trees and shrubs with an emphasis on providing fodder, fruit, and nuts for animal production. The goal is to propagate species that reduce, or eliminate the need in animal agriculture for destructive, annual-tillage, thirsty crops like alfalfa.
Wild Sprout Nursery - https://www.wildsproutnursery.com - A fledgling nursery in NW Washington state with a focus on growing perennial food, fodder, and timber plants and trees that are hardy and perform well in a diversity of regions.
Barred Owl Brook Farm - https://www.barredowlbrookfarm.com/nursery - Up in Northern NY, with a focus on very cold hardy and adaptable tree crops. Nice wide selection at very reasonable prices.
Forest Gardens - https://www.forestgardensfarm.com/ - Located in the southern Piedmont of Athens, Georgia, Forest Gardens is a permaculture nursery that specializes in edible & ecological plants that are hand selected for their productivity & resilience in the beautiful South East.
*NOTE - Some of these nurseries may also be sold out right now, and we encourage you to join their email lists so you can hear about when they open up inventory and what they’re up to. We have a direct connection to each nursery listed here and can vouch for them all as being good, ethical businesses with excellent plant offerings. We hope you have a chance to support them!
Seed Sources (for annual and perennial plants):
Experimental Farm Network - experimentalfarmnetwork.org - Very important site that not only offers a wide range of amazing annual and perennial seeds of interest but also a vibrant and healthy social networking space to share notes and organize research and breeding of these wonderful plants.
Fruition Seeds - fruitionseeds.com - Lovely friends of ours near Naples, NY. Great horticultural knowledge mixed with deep respect and care, they are a seed company to check out for sure.
Alliance of Native Seed Keepers - allianceofnativeseedkeepers.com - Indigenous people run seed collective from North Carolina. A friend shared this with us and they look like a truly amazing resource!
Incredible Seeds - www.incredibleseeds.ca - Highly recommended source of seeds from some of our Canadian friends. We haven’t ordered from them but they come with high regards from others.
Baker Creek Seeds - rareseeds.com - Very wide range of seeds that are great for saving.
High Mowing Seeds - highmowingseeds.com - Organic seeds for home or farm scale growing
Fedco Seeds - fedcoseeds.com - Incredibly broad selection of seeds as well as plants and supplies up in Maine. Worker owned co-op.
Terre Promise - www.terrepromise.ca/en - Another Canadian source for seeds with a nice wide selection and a commitment to ethical growing.
Northern Food Forest - northernfoodforest.ca - Canadian Food Forest nursery we’ve learned about recently that seems to have a wonderful selection of heatlhy plants at reasonable prices. Serving Canada.
Bifurcaria Rasadnik/Nursery - www.bifurcaria.net - Are small organic (permaculture) nursery from Croatia /Europe/ focused on all kinds of perennial plants - trees, shrubs and herbaceous. And also a forest garden project..
Community Lists of Favorite Nurseries:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaOIxOEJOx8 - A video we put out in October of 2019 asking the community to share their favorite sources for seeds and plants both in the US and Canada and beyond. A ton of great suggestions and first hand positive reports there in the comments so please check that out for a much broader list.
https://youtu.be/rC9gJUGi2kA - Video put out late November 2020 asking folks to share notes of their favorite sources for seed and plants. Worth reading the comments.