Plants for Everyone is a bare-root perennial plant sale that happens once a year in Asheville, NC. Although we have many loyal customers who come every year, we wanted to provide a brief explanation of how the sale works for people who are just finding us!
Every year we try to source the best, most interesting, and useful plants we can in order to provide the Asheville community with affordable bare-root perennials. Around mid December every year, we open our online store for pre-orders. From mid December to mid February, customers can browse our inventory and select their varieties!
Once the order is paid, customers receive a confirmation email with details about the sale. This year, the pre-order pickup days will be Thursday February 29, 2024 and Friday March 1, 2024 from noon-6 pm. Customers will show up to our location at: Smith Mill Works 80 Cowan Cove Road, Asheville NC 28806 during these times, where you will be greeted by our staff, who will pull your order with you and help you pick out the best specimens of your chosen varieties. Then, it’s off to the garden or orchard! Saturday, March 2 from noon-6 pm is the general sale. This is a great time to come back and get the plants you forgot to put in your pre-order, or to bring friends and family to stock up for their gardens! A percentage of all plant varieties on the website will be at the general sale on Saturday, even the varieties that may have sold out during pre-orders.
VOLUNTEER SCHEDULE IS FULL FOR 2024. If you are interested in volunteering in the future, please email us and we will put you on our volunteer email list.
One of our favorite and most unique things about the sale is that folks can trade work hours for plants, to the tune of $15 hourly. Interacting with our volunteers is really one of the best things about the sale to us. Our volunteers tend to be fellow plant enthusiasts and it is a great way for us and the volunteers to meet like-minded people in the community. In order to volunteer, you just need to think about how many hours you want to commit, plan your plant order accordingly, and then select this option shown below at checkout in our online store:
If a volunteer orders more plants than they work for, the remaining balance can be settled when plants are picked up. In early January all past volunteers and interested new parties who have contacted us will be emailed to create the schedule. Volunteers will be asked to help set up at Smith Mill Works the week before the sale, staff the sale, and help clean-up after. If one selects the volunteer option at checkout, be sure to also email us to express interest in volunteering.
All volunteers are welcome to pick up their plants at the end of their shifts or on the plant pick-up days. Any volunteers working at the General Sale will need to set up a time to pick up their plants or ask to have them set aside so that their orders are saved before the general sale.
If there are any remaining questions about volunteering or the sale, please don’t hesitate to reach out via email. We would love to hear from you!