Spring Plant Sale
Benefiting the Washington Park Arboretum
April 2024
Date TBD
Graham Visitors Center
Free parking and admission
Spring is in the air, and it’s time to carry out those exciting garden plans and projects! Add new life and beauty to your home by buying trees, shrubs, and perennials at our volunteer-run Cloney-Harris Plant Nursery and Pat Calvert Greenhouse, located next to the Graham Visitors Center.
At our annual Spring Plant Sale in early April, the nursery will re-open for the season (April through October), and the greenhouse will be back operating at full capacity. Volunteers will be on-site from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to help you with plant selections and share more about these volunteer run plant programs.
Shop when convenient: You can shop anytime the Arboretum is open! New plants are added to the inventory every week throughout the season. You can browse the nursery and greenhouse at your leisure and purchase plants through the Gift Shop in the Visitors Center (Wednesdays to Sundays, 10:15 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.) or via our convenient online checkout system.
Volunteer on-site hours: Our nursery and greenhouse volunteers are very knowledgeable and are happy to help with plant advice and selections, come and see them during their program hours! Throughout the regular season, Nursery volunteers will be on-site on Wednesdays, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Greenhouse volunteers will be on-site on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10 a.m. to noon.
Shop with purpose: Purchases from our nursery and greenhouse help fund core horticulture, environmental education, and volunteer programs at the Arboretum.

What you’ll find at the nursery
- Miniature roses in bloom.
- Spring-flowering beauties such as trilliums and trout lilies (Erythronium).
- Perennials such as heucheras, hostas, epimediums.
- Groundcovers such as mondo grass.
- Native plants.
- Young snake-bark maples.
- Small and medium-sized trees.
- And much more.
What you’ll find at the greenhouse
- A unique selection of young camellias, rhododendrons, hydrangeas and other shrubs propagated from Arboretum collections.
- Japanese maples, mountain ash, and other small trees for the urban garden.
- A nice selection of penstemons, Solomon’s seal, and lady’s mantle.
- Many compact conifers.
- And much more.

Locating our plants
The greenhouse and nursery can be found just south of the Graham Visitors Center, directly behind the large greenhouse structure at the south end of the Visitors Center parking lot. From the southeast corner of the Visitors Center Parking Lot, follow the gravel path around the side of a greenhouse structure.
- The Pat Calvert Greenhouse Complex (featuring a Sunhouse and Shadehouse) will be directly in front of you as you curve around the large greenhouse structure.
- The Cloney-Harris Plant Nursery is just to the southwest of the Greenhouse Complex, next to Arboretum Drive, and can also be accessed via the Visitors Center terrace.
Blue or red price tags only: You’ll see signs to help direct you to the greenhouse and nursery and to identify plants for sale. Select only plants that have red (greenhouse) or blue (nursery) price tags on them! Please do not take plants without those tags, because they might not be ready for purchase!
Questions: Call us at 206-325-4510 or email info@arboretumfoundation.org.

Humor: The Garden is a Dangerous Place
Sep 20, 2023
Gardening is a scary pastime, or so writer Barbara Blossom Ashmun claims in her article in the latest Arboretum Bulletin. In her many years as a garden professional and hobbiest, she has been attacked by bald-faced hornets, poisoned by plant sap, sent to ER because...

Bigleaf Maple: A Native Tree With Much to Offer!
Aug 19, 2023
As the warmth of summer fills our days, the canopy cover of trees provides welcome respite from the heat. With a spreading crown and thick branches covered with a profusion of foliage, mosses, lichens and ferns, the bigleaf maple (Acer macrophyllum) stands out as a...

Marvelous Woody Mints of the Arboretum
Jul 25, 2023
The mint family, Lamiaceae, is a familiar one for gardeners. We plant lots of low-growing herbaceous plants from this group - such as salvias, basil, and bee balm - in our kitchen gardens and ornamental borders. But you may be surprised to learn that the family also...