The volunteer spring plant sale this year has an exciting new addition: The Director’s Selection.

This area will feature zone 6 and zone 7 trees for permanent plantings that are often hard to find but have exceptional qualities suitable for Richmond and it includes many native trees as well as unique cultivars and new hybrids.

There’ll be over 30 types in sizes ranging from 18” to 5’ with something in everyone’s price range. While many are in good quantities, others are limited to a few plants.

The collection includes the following:

• Sourwood (Oxydendrum arboreum), a choice 3-season small tree, rather carefree with great fall color

• Two species of Stewartia (pseudocamellia and monodelpha), also with 3-season interest and decorative bark

• Blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica), with its stand-out red fall color

• Three selections of genera that have been growing since prehistoric times:

Gingko biloba: ‘Autumn Gold’ and ‘Fastiagiata’, both male with day-glo yellow fall color

Dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides - It was thought to be extinct until it was discovered alive in China in the 1940’s) We have ‘Ogon’ with its chartreuse yellow foliage for the plant sale

Fourteen choices of magnolia species and newly introduced hybrids will be offered. Most of the magnolias are not yet on the Virginia market and in very limited quantities

• Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) for damp/wet sites-We have five cultivars (in limited quantities): a tight semi-dwarf, one with yellow foliage, two weeping types, and a bushy witch’s broom.

• Two unique cultivars of English oak: ‘Argenteo Marginata’ and ‘Cristata’

• A weeping /spreading hornbeam (Carpinus betulus) “Dervaesii’

• And for those who’ve always wanted a tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera) but didn’t have room, we’ve got ‘Ardis” at one-third the size

Here’s a chance to get some really special life-time plants and support the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden at the same time!

Bill Smith is a volunteer at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

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