Scioto Gardens

08/24/2026

This is Marcey. Marcey LOVES chokeberries. Recently, she's been making frequent visits to the 'Viking' black chokeberry planted by the production tables to partake of their sweet, slightly astringent fruit. She'll walk away, intending to continue her day... but then she'll notice the purple juice stains on her fingers, and she'll inevitably make another visit for just a few more berries. If you're nice, she might even grab you some for you to try... if she doesn't eat them during the delivery, that is. 🤣

Both black and red chokeberries are excellent native fruit plants. While the fruit can make your mouth pucker (hence the name!), they can be used for cooking into jams, pies, or even wine! Red chokeberries are a little sweeter than black, though the 'Viking' variety of black chokeberry was selected for fruit size and improved palatability. They both sport beautiful white flowers in spring, and stunning red foliage in fall that makes an excellent replacement for non-native burning bushes. When Marcey isn't around to compete for the ripe fruit, these berries often stay on the shrubs all winter and act as an important food for hungry songbirds when most other options run scarce. They will actually ferment during their time on the stem, and become more attractive to birds after doing so!

We currently have both red and black chokeberry available, while the 'Viking' selection should be available in about a month or so. Don't be afraid of the name, and consider some of these shrubs for multiple seasons of interest in your landscape!

08/24/2026

We asked our team - what does prairie dropseed smell like to you? Often described as smelling like popcorn, roasted nuts, fresh hay, or cilantro, this native grass emits a gentle aroma when tousled by a breeze, which many of us adore. It grows to about 1’ tall by early summer, with flowering stems that stand above to 3’ with open and airy panicles. Prairie dropseed makes an excellent native alternative to fountain grass, and is easy-to-grow, long lived, and well behaved despite the name “dropseed.” Full sun is its preference, and it thrives in poor soil. We invite you to come by and give it a whiff and let us know what you think it does (or doesn’t) smell like!

08/23/2026

Don’t miss out on this week’s events at Sackett Farm Flowers!

We have a fun week ahead and we want you be a part of it all!

First of all we'd like to welcome back the Sun! ☀️☀️☀️Happy to see you again!

💐Daytime U-Pick hours this Wednesday and Thursday 10-4pm!

Bring friends, kiddos, or just yourself. Fun to be surrounded by gorgeous blooms while you choose the ones you wish to take home. Containers are $25/$35! It's EZ, enjoyable and memorable...good picture taking too!

💐Thursday evening is a private elevated U-Pick event called Sip,Clip and Savor!

$40/pp! Event details and payment link included. 6:30-8:30pm Pick your flowers and have gentle guidance to arrange them artfully in a vase you will take home! Learn tips about how to best cut the stems and how to keep the flowers fresh longer. In addition you'll have time to explore the farm, take fun photos that are IG worthy and enjoy a delightful box of charcuterie treats included in your ticket! Did I also mention time to relax and enjoy time with friends???

💐Friday evening U-Pick has a band!!!
We are so excited to welcome back
The Dolfin Folken Streetband! They are the perfect vibe for the farm...chill, folksy, fun!

5pm- sunset! $5/car cover(goes to the band!) Bring a picnic, carryout, BYOB, a blanket or chairs and hang out. Get flowers to take home for your weekend
($25/$35) Enjoy the band and beauty of Sackett Farm Flowers!

08/22/2026

The nursery is buzzing with activity and SO MANY summer flowers right now. The false sunflowers are covered in butterflies, the obedient plant has bees of every size, and the phlox is a favorite of the snowberry clearwing moths. We’d love these plants to bring your gardens the same joy and wildlife that they’re bringing us! We’re open through the end of October on Tuesdays - Saturdays from 10am to 6pm, and on Sundays from 11am to 5pm. It’s an excellent time to plant, and we have so many options available right now!

Share this with someone whose garden could use a few more butterflies and bees this fall ☺️

08/22/2026

This week we have three of our easiest-to-grow, most carefree plants that fill many garden types out, as well as a majestic vine that dreams are made of.

Sideoats grama (𝘉𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘢 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘭𝘢) is a native warm-season bunchgrass that is a foundation of our short-grass prairies. The delicate, dangling flowers and seeds provide visual texture, and it can be used in clumps or allowed to spread into a taller, wilder replacement for turfgrass. It handles infertile, dry, and rocky soil with ease, and prefers full sun.

Wild petunia (𝘙𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘢 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘴) is another champion of poor, rocky, infertile soil, and makes an excellent border plant or ground cover. It’s lavender flowers bloom all summer long, and it’s small round seeds will spread merrily to fill in the gaps of your garden if allowed.

‘Morris Berd’ smooth phlox (𝘗𝘩𝘭𝘰𝘹 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘢 '‘Morris Berd’) takes the roll of short-growing groundcover to soil with more moisture, including on the edges of rain gardens. Their neon pink flowers attract long-tongued pollinators in spring, and like the petunia, they can cover ground and fill in gaps after a few seasons via rhizome.

Breaking away from the previous three, our last plant is a relative titan but no less dreamy. ‘Amethyst Falls’ American wisteria (𝘞𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘢 𝘧𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘴 ‘Amethyst Falls’) is a large vine adorned with beautiful 6” racemes of lavender flowers in late spring to early summer. Though large at over 25’ long, American wisteria is less aggressive and less damaging to structures than its Asiatic cousin, allowing gardeners to enjoy their mystical beauty without the risk of it overtaking a landscape.

08/20/2026

When you go out to your patch of milkweed to admire monarch butterfly caterpillars and other pollinators, are you finding large clusters of bright orange-and-black insects as well? These are likely milkweed bugs, and while they can look a little intimidating (both in color and number), there's no reason to fear them. In fact, they rely on the milkweed just like the monarch butterflies do.

The native plant community talks a lot about host plants for butterflies and moths, but there are many more types of insects that are less studied or less charismatic that also have important relationships with plants. These large milkweed bugs (𝘖𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘴 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴) raise their young on milkweed just like monarchs. The juvenile insects, or nymphs, exclusively eat the seeds of milkweed plants, piercing the seeds with their tube-like mouthparts. Adults can adapt to other foods in lab settings, but primarily eat milkweed as well.

Possibly due to their reliance on milkweed plants, they have another similarity to monarch butterflies - the adults migrate! Large milkweed bugs in northern regions stop reproducing and migrate south for the winter, and the populations spread from the south again the following spring as temperatures climb and milkweed starts growing. The similarities don't end there either. These insects accumulate the toxins that they consume from milkweed, and their bright colors are a warning to would-be predators, just like monarchs. Closely related species, like the false milkweed bug, also accumulate toxin from their preferred host plants (in their case, false sunflower).

Clusters of these bugs can be startling, and you might be worried about your milkweed plants, but fear not. They won't defoliate your plants, and usually leave plenty of seeds (it would be a poor strategy to prevent the reproduction of your host entirely). While adults might occasionally and opportunistically make a meal of a monarch egg or caterpillar, it's not their preferred food source. So don't fret when you see them, and enjoy your new garden guests!

08/19/2026

Fall is around the corner, and migration has begun for some of our earliest tropical migrants (like orioles). You may start to wonder how you can support birds during their energy-expensive migrations, and what birds eat during the winter? For many songbirds, both migratory and resident, they turn from a diet of primarily insects in the summer to one including fruit for migration and winter, and planting native berry-producing shrubs and trees is an excellent way to support them.

When selecting berry plants for your landscape, you want a mix of both high "quality" and low "quality fruit. This essentially reflects the lipid content of the fruit. Lipid-rich fruit provides more energy, but spoil more quickly on the stem (though they are almost always eaten before that happens). These "high-quality" fruit are the ones that birds eat early in fall and winter to fuel their expensive migration flights. Low "quality" fruit are less lipid-dense (less than 10% by weight), but they are JUST AS IMPORTANT! These berries last longer without spoiling, and since birds gloss over them earlier in the season, it means that they are there to provide critical nutrition when other food options are becoming scarce in mid-to-late winter. A landscape does not support birds year-round without both types of fruit!

We currently have many of both types available, including:

High lipid content:
- Roughleaf Dogwood
- Gray Dogwood
- Red-twig Dogwood
- Flowering Dogwood
- Spicebush
- Northern Bayberry
- American Beautyberry
- 'Chicago Lustre' Arrowwood Viburnum
- Blackhaw Viburnum

Low lipid content:
- Fragrant Sumac (and 'Gro-low' Fragrant Sumac)
- Staghorn Sumac
- Red Chokeberry
- Black Chokeberry (and 'Viking' Black Chokeberry)
- Common Snowberry
- Winterberry (as well as the 'Winter Red,' 'Southern Gentleman,' 'Red Sprite,' and 'Jim Dandy' varieties)

If you don't have either represented in your landscape, now is the time to add some! Plants are halting their above-ground growth for the year, so it's an excellent time to plant.

08/17/2026

We had a blast searching the nursery for caterpillars this past weekend, and you can join us on Saturday, August 29 (8:30pm - midnight) for our next caterpillar crawl! We’re starting the evening by watching Homegrown National Park’s “The Extraordinary Caterpillar - a beautiful documentary exploring the world of caterpillars, and then we’ll venture outside to find some for ourselves. With so many different native plants in one place, we see all sorts of cool critters. Tickets are available now on our website, and you can apply that $10 toward the purchase of plants! While the event starts at 8:30pm, you’re welcome to drop in early to shop and set aside anything you purchase.

We hope you’ll join us for this awesome evening!

08/16/2026

On Thursday of this past week, the Delaware County Ohio Master Gardener Association visited as part of their Advanced Master Gardener Specialization in Native Plants program for a tour of the nursery. We enjoyed showing you all what we do and getting to know everyone, and we hope you had a great time as well!