Shelterwood Gardens is a nursery for beginning and seasoned gardeners interested in growing native plants of our Minnesota woodlands,  prairies, wetlands, and savannas. Welcome.


Consider purchasing an e-gift card for the plant lover in your life! Simply click this link and you will be able to purchase an electronic gift card. All processing is done by our trusted credit card processor Square (same as those white terminals in coffee shops and retail outlets). We will never see your credit card information, the e-gift card is easy to use, and you can use it anytime during our open season.


Location & Hours:
Our location in the West Metro will be open Saturdays as early in April as the weather allows. If you are anxious to pick up some of our ephemerals, please send us an email. Beginning May 1st through June 20th, we will be open Friday through Sundays, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm. All other times by appointment.

Payment:
Shelterwood Gardens accepts personal checks, credit card payments via Square, and we are now also accepting cash. See above for e-gift cards.

Our Ecological Footprint:
Plastic is the bane of the nursery industry, but there are few effective pot and tray alternatives. Our small scale allows us to successfully re-use clean pots. You are welcome to return our pots to the nursery on a return visit. Please note: plastic pots, even those stamped #5, cannot be recycled due to color or other factors.

Shelterwood does not utilize a heated greenhouse. Mature plants are grown outside, where they have survived one or more winters. Several species are grown from local seed suppliers, such as Prairie Moon in Winona. Difficult to germinate species are started by trusted, MN Dept of Agriculture licensed and Certified Pollinator Friendly, wholesale nursery partners. Shelterwood grows these little plants to maturity in pots or raised beds at our nursery. 

All plants are grown without neonicotinoids or other pesticides. We sometimes use Safer Soap if there is a strong showing of Aphids (typically on Asclepias species). Shelterwood does not grow or sell species listed as invasive or noxious.

We do not stock cardboard trays to protect car seats. Please be sure to bring something to protect your car interior from soil or water. If you need assistance with this, or have a particularly large order, we can help and often have at least a few cardboard can trays around.

 

Blue lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica, a wonderland of blue spires into autumn.


Verbena hastata, Blue Vervain -good for wet to medium soils, part shade to full sun.


On the left is Short's Aster, but did you know goldenrod is also an aster? Blue-stem Goldenrod
 
 
 
The name Hairy Beardtongue, Penstemon hirsutus, doesn't indicate at all how delightful this near native plant is in the garden. The blue-violet-purple-periwinkle-white flowers are like soft lanterns in the landscape. A great plant that is native just to our south and east.

 

It would be a shame to have a savanna or woodland garden without the crown-like flowers of Columbine,  Aquilegia canadensis.  The native plant has carmine red and yellow flowers and can bloom early in a warm spring and keep on going into summer if it doesn't heat up too much.



Prairie Clover, Dalea purpurea, is a fantastic plant to speckle your part shade to sun garden with magenta-pink flowers in summer.  Seen here with the minnow-like inflorescence of Blue Grama, Bouteloua gracilis.

 
                                                          
I don't see any pollinators on this Rose Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, do you? For those who want a less "spready" milkweed that Monarchs love, this is a great one!
 
 
Black-Eye Susan, Rudbeckia hirta, is a biennial plant -start them from seed instead of buying plants! They love areas where they can catch the sun unencumbered by other plants. Native meadows often have many of these at first, then dwindling in the second and third years due to the competition. These flowers look like they were applied with a painter's brush and bring a lot of joy, so allow it to self-seed around the edges and transplant it where you want it, or keep a clear area to seed yearly.