It's more than just a slogan for nurseries trying to sale plants.
Fall is a great time for bargains at the nursery and it's healthier for many of the plants to get them in the ground so the roots can get established prior to the next growing season.
Look around your garden and see if there's space to add a native tree or native shrubs. You can print off coupons from the state and/or from Montgomery County to get an additional $25 or $40 off your native trees. For example, I bought us 3 native dogwoods originally priced at $159 each (ouch!) that were 50% off ($80 each) then $40 off each from the coupons. That means that each tree cost only $40!
http://dnr.maryland.gov/…/Marylander…/Print-Your-Coupon.aspx
http://www.montgomeryplanning.org/…/d…/MoneyGrowsonTrees.pdf
The trees, shrubs and ferns that I bought are for our Pleasant View native plant garden. I need your help getting them in the ground though. If you want to learn tricks from an experienced gardener, come help me plant. I'll be going multiple days and times to the site to plant -- email if you want to help. merikays@verizon.net.
'Cherokee Princess' is the white dogwood (above) that I bought. It's considered one of the best for a native white blooming dogwood however it is prone to anthracnose. If I could have found one of the newer cultivars that is disease resistant I would have purchased it. The pink blooms are 'Cherokee Brave' which is particularly lovely and considered more drought tolerant than other cultivars. Ideally I would have bought a tree in the Appalachian series as they are more disease resistant. Genetically the Appalachian dogwoods come from a tree found in the Catoctins (nearby us) that was observed to be disease free in a stand of otherwise infected trees.