Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do you allow in-person shopping at your nursery?

A: We're a small operation consisting of two people, with our nursery located on private property. We aren’t a typical retail nursery, and don't have normal operating hours currently. We ask customers to not arrive for shopping outside of an event or without an appointment first.

As of 2026, we don't offer in-person shopping – yet! However, we're working towards allowing customers to schedule 1-on-1 shopping appointments, and offer more open hours for in-person shopping. Please follow us on social media for news and updates!

Beginning in 2026, our nursery will be closed for shopping and online purchasing of plants beginning in July to August of the given year.

Q: Where are you located?

A: We're located in northern Henrico County, Virginia; in the Lakeside neighborhood. Our nursery is situated on private property so we don't give out our address online.

We will provide our address to customers for order pick-up, or when we host events such as open houses or appointments. Please do not arrive for shopping outside of an event or without an appointment first, or you may get a barking at by our giant but gentle and sweet dog.

Q: How do I order plants or seeds?

A: You may order plants easily from our online shop! What we have currently in stock is listed there. Creating an account is optional, and once an order is placed we will reach out within 7 days (usually within 0-2 days) to let you know your order is ready and coordinate time for your contactless pick-up from our location in Henrico County.

If you want to see photos of plants before ordering, just shoot us an email! We are very picky about the quality of plants we sell, so please rest assured plants you receive will be healthy and ready to go into the ground immediately!

You may also find us at seasonal events (see Find Us), and we sometimes post on social media when we are open to the public for shopping.

Seed orders are shipped out within 7 days (usually 0-2 from order being received). We charge a flat rate of $5 for all seed orders.

Q: How do I pick-up the plants I ordered?

A: Orders are usually ready for pick-up within 7 days (usually closer to 0-2 days). We will reach out with details to the email you used to place the order. Please be on the lookout for an email, and check your spam folder! Unfortunately our messages get sent to spam frequently.

Pick-ups are usually contactless. If you’d like to meet or talk to us, just let us know in advance!

Please see pick-up/delivery page for details on the process.

Q: Do you deliver plant orders?

We deliver plant orders of $100 or more, for free, locally to the Greater Richmond region, which includes Chesterfield County, Henrico County, the City of Richmond, and most immediately surrounding counties. Generally deliveries happen within 7 days of an order being placed. Once an order is placed we will reach out to coordinate the delivery with you. 

If you would rather pick up the order, and don’t want delivery, please just let us know in the notes when you check out.

Please see pick-up / delivery page for specific details.

Q: What is your return, refund, or exchange policy?

A: Once plants leave our care, we can't permit returns, refunds, or exchanges, unless we have misidentified the species of the plant when we grew it, or there was an error we made while fulfilling the order. Please reach out to us if you think this is the case, and we will do our best to correct it.

Some plants we have nurtured from seed for several years before putting them for sale. Some species we sell need *very specific* site conditions (soil type, water, sunlight) in order to thrive let alone survive, and we provide that information (as best we can) in the product pages or display it with signage at events. If we think a plant may be difficult to grow, we will do our best to make that information available!

We can't assume the experience of the gardener, and have no control over the site conditions of your garden. We recommend customers do research in advance of purchasing on each species they want, to be sure a plant is a good fit for your garden/site, and matches your level of experience.

Q: Can I shop when I pick up my online plant order? 

A: (Please see "Do you allow shopping at your nursery?" question above) 

Currently we don't allow in-person shopping, but we would like to in the near future! Whenever we do, arrangements to shop when picking up plants will need to be made at least a day or two in advance, generally at the time your pick-up is being scheduled. 

If arrangements haven’t been made, please reach out to us if interested. We will try to be flexible but may not be available at the time of your order pick-up.

Q: What payment methods do you accept?

A: Payment may be completed online using our shop. At events and open houses, we accept cash, debit and credit cards, and checks for payment. Checks should be made out to Woolly Bear Natives. We no longer accept Venmo or Paypal payments. Invoices for special orders can be created and emailed as well for completing payment online.

Q: Do you offer garden or landscape consultation, such as an on-site visit?

A: At this time, we don't offer in-depth garden visits, consultation, or landscaping services to customers. We would be more than happy to recommend local landscapers and designers who focus on utilizing native plants!

We may offer on-site consultation to nonprofits or schools, depending on our availability. If customers would like a 1-on-1 shopping appointment (when we open appointment booking), we're happy to make plant recommendations, but highly advise customers to do research before shopping!

Q: Can you recommend plants I should buy?

A: We receive a lot of requests for recommendations for specific gardens and can’t accommodate every request. Our shop has an easy to use filter that helps customers with choosing plants with specific needs, such as plants for moist areas, plants for shade, plants that are drought tolerant, browse resistant, etc. Details on each plant are included in the product pages.

We are working on adding tailored and at-a-glance online guides for recommended native plants for many garden sites and conditions, to be added to our website sometime in the future (under plant guides).

We are also more than happy to make recommendations to customers when shopping in person or at an appointment. If you are looking for help with planning and designing your garden, we may recommend several local businesses who specialize in native plants. Please let us know if interested in connecting with a local landscaper or designer.

At present there are many such guides to be found at a couple of other websites, including topics such as recommended foundation plants, recommended part sun or shade plants, plants for rain gardens, container plants, etc:

https://mgnv.org/ - Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia

https://www.youtube.com/@mgnv - Youtube channel for the above with lots of great webinars

https://www.plantnovanatives.org/ - Plant NOVA Natives

Q: Do you offer wholesale, or offer bulk discounts?

A: Due to our small operation and staffing, we only grow a limited number of one species each year, and giving discounts for bulk quantities of plants puts us at a disadvantage. We do sometimes mark plants down in retail price, often towards the end of the growing season.

If you are looking to place large orders, please reach out to us first to see if we can accommodate. We would also be happy to recommend Midatlantic region native plant nurseries who can meet your needs!

A majority of our plants are of local genetics, which *very* few other nurseries in the region do! Additionally, some species we grow are rarely offered in the native plant trade, and our stock of seed for production may be limited. Additionally, bulk quantities of seed may not be something we can offer easily at this time.

Q: Do you grow plug trays for customers, resellers, or businesses to buy?

A: Currently due to our small operating size and staffing, we don't offer plug trays for normal retail purchasing. An exception may be made for non-profits, schools and landscaper businesses if we are given notice in the winter of the preceding year, and depending on the species requested and the time of year. This is something we are experimenting with and hope to offer in the future, so if interested please reach out to us!

Some nurseries in Virginia and surrounding states do offer plug trays for retail, and we'd be happy to make recommendations if you're looking to purchase plugs locally.

Q: Do you ship plants?

A: We don't currently ship plants, only seed packets. Shipping plants is something we may offer in the future, but due to federal and state regulations, and nationwide issues with mail and package deliveries, we are assessing how best to approach this before offering it.

If you would like to make arrangements with someone locally to pick up and ship your order for you, that is possible, but we are not responsible for any issues after the plants leave our care.

Q: What is an 'ecotype'?

A: An ‘ecotype’ – sometimes known as a plant’s ‘provenance’ – refers to a given plant population’s region where it’s naturally occurring. Sometimes plant provenance is defined by geographic region (Coastal Plain, Piedmont, etc), which is often referenced in habitat restoration efforts to ensure reintroductions of species to a site are the best fit genetically.

For our purposes, we define a plant’s ‘ecotype’ by the state its genetic source was growing in. ‘Virginia’ refers to those located in our state, ‘Midatlantic’ refers to genetic material of the eastern coast states (we may not be able to verify the exact state), and if we are unsure it’s typically commercially sourced seed often from the Midwest.

Why ecotype matters: through hundreds or thousands of generations, our local wild plants have survived and adapted to the region’s climate, soil chemistry, pathogens, etc. Slight genetic variation occurs between different populations of the same species growing in different regions, resulting in new characteristics. A plant population located near the ocean may exhibit better tolerance to salt spray; one located in the mountains may have better adaptation to cold temperatures. The same idea is applied to what’s growing in your area, though often in ways hard to notice.

This is a niche concept that may go over most people’s heads. Since a majority of commercially available native plants are sourced from the Midwest, in general we find wild plants occurring locally show the best performance in both sustaining themselves in a landscape and providing food and nourishment to local wildlife.

Q: Where / how do you collect native seeds?

A majority of our stock is grown from plants we’ve propagated ourselves, taken from material collected from wild populations occurring in the central and eastern region of the state, generally within 100 miles of Henrico County. Meaning all of our plants are non-cultivated, straight species.

We predominantly collect seed in powerline easements, public roadsides, ditches, railroad embankments, construction sites, and waste areas. There are a handful of public parks and private land we’ve been given permission to collect from.

We adhere to practices that prevent stress or damage to wild populations, by: 1: harvesting only 10% or less of a given quantity of seed; 2: waiting multiple years to collect from that same population again; and 3: collecting late in the season when most of the seed has already been disbursed. Seed we collect is then used to grow our own plants for propagation (and for seed production), so we are not straining wild populations with persistent collecting.