Welcome to the Red Stem Landscapes FAQ page—a one-stop resource designed to answer the most common questions we receive about our products and services, and your native garden. If you are ordering plants on our online store–whether you’re placing an order for pickup at our Chicago location or opting for delivery, our FAQ covers every step. Here’s what you’ll find:
The measurements of the different-sized pots are:
The size options for each plant are visible when you click on the plant name.
Yes. Planting instructions are included with every order.
We are happy to research the availability of a particular plant for you, but cannot guarantee it.
During the season, one to two days is typical.
Preorders should be ready mid-May through June. From time to time, a plant that is expected to be available suffers a crop failure and will not be available. We will alert you as soon as we know of these occurrences.
Sign up through the website. You will get a confirmation email that includes all the information you need to pick up your plants.
Yes, we do! You will have the option to order your local delivery at our online checkout. We deliver on Thursdays for orders of $100 or more.
Pricing is based on distance from our nursery, with a maximum delivery range of 20 miles. Orders of $250 or more qualify for free delivery.
Delivery Fees:
Our nursery is not set up for retail but we offer two in-person sale dates this year. We will have a large selection of plants on display for sale, just outside the nursery gates. The 2025 in-person plant sales will be held Saturday, June 28th and on a TBD date in September. An announcement for the September sale will be sent to our email list and posted on social media.
We steward your garden to ensure its health, beauty, and balance. For new gardens, we weed, mulch, edge the beds, and replace any plants not thriving. For established gardens, we may also weed, trim, divide and transplant plants as needed, move fallen leaves to where they can function as mulch (or remove them, if needed), stake plants, and other tasks.
We begin stewarding our gardens at the beginning of April and continue through the end of November. During years of late leaf drop we may do a visit in December.
Generally, no. Mulch deters weeds and retains moisture, which is helpful in new gardens where there is considerable open space, for example. But an established native garden will have last year’s leaves providing a natural mulch and a thick ground cover layer to suppress weeds and keep the soil cool.
Annual mulching, compounded over the years, can harbor fungi and pests; prevent air and moisture from entering the soil; and smother the plants in a bed.
An exception to the annual mulching rule might be shrubs and trees that are surrounded by bare soil. In this situation we recommend underplanting with sedges or other plants. Mulch may be needed for bare soil around these plants to help retain moisture.
During the first year after planting, when root systems are not yet established, see our Watering Guide. In subsequent years, a well-designed native garden will require no additional water except in periods of extended drought, when watering in the morning every few days—before the heat and sun of midday—can keep your garden looking fresh. In most cases, though, your native garden will recover, even if you don’t water in dry periods.
While dry stems can be beautiful in winter, especially when they capture the snow, a more important reason to keep some stems standing is to support our native bee species. Some native bees use the hollow stems for their nurseries through the winter, with baby bees hatching in the spring.
It’s best to leave stems until temperatures are well above 50 degrees. If you want to clean up in early spring, it is easy to cut the stems and place them aside until later in spring to allow any young bees to emerge.
Reasons for flopping include: watering too much; not enough sun for that species (check to see if tree growth may be changing your sunny garden to shade); or the grass matrix not having grown tall enough or rooted enough to support other plants. Our stewardship crew will stake leaning plants or determine if they should be removed, or of course you can do it yourself.
Bamboo stakes and twine work well for this.
While dead material removal and minor pruning may be done almost any time of year, major pruning in our climate zone is best done when trees and shrubs are dormant in late winter. For trees with sap like those in the Maple, Birch and Crab Apple families, it is best to avoid pruning in early spring.
Your native grasses and flowers require no special winter preparation. You may want to take down some of the standing material, but we recommend leaving stems for native bees.
Water and mulch. If you have young shrubs and trees, be sure to water well during late fall to prevent winter desiccation. A layer of mulch can be helpful where the ground around these plants is bare. Just be sure not to let the mulch touch the bark and do not keep adding mulch each year unless the old mulch is nearly gone.
Rabbits. If your area has a lot of rabbits, you may want to protect the shrubs with hardware cloth caging for the first few years. Rabbit cages should reach at least one foot above the anticipated snow line. We offer rabbit caging in late fall.
The shrubs most commonly affected by rabbits are: Chokeberries (black, red)
Dogwoods (grey, pagoda, red twig, silky) New jersey tea
Oak leaf hydrangea Pine (young)
Red Bud Rose Serviceberry Spicebush
St John’s wort Sumac
Young trees may need protection as well. Trunks can be wrapped in sheaths made for the purpose.
Deer. Deer fencing is more challenging. Where deer can get a running start, you will need 8-foot fencing.
Repellents. Liquid repellents, if applied frequently, can work. Use the egg (sulphur)-based products, the taste of which deer and rabbits dislike.
Predator urine repellents are extracted in a cruel manner and deer and rabbits learn there is nothing to fear from them.
Wind and salt. If you have shrubs or evergreens where they are exposed to road salt and/or high winds, you may want to protect them with a canvas or burlap barrier—never plastic, because it can cause damaging temperature fluctuations.
Consultations cost $100. Consultations range from half an hour to one hour, depending on the size and complexity of the space.
Too many factors come into play for us to approximate costs without a site visit. After the initial consultation, the designer can provide a rough estimate for the work discussed. Then, if you wish to proceed to the design phase, the ultimate cost for your installation may vary from this rough estimate based upon your preferences.
Yes. We encourage early planning and can provide online video meetings in winter for the initial consultation. Photos of your site during the growing season, and your plat of survey will be helpful.
While this depends on the size and complexity of the design, whether hardscaping is involved, and how much material must be removed before planting can begin, most of our garden installations take from one-half day to five days.
The designer and/or a design assistant will be on site to lay out the plants at the installation.
Yes. Your designer would be happy to work with you to create phases that make sense for you.
We agree to replace plant material that, under normal care, fails to survive for a season after planting: spring and summer plantings are guaranteed through fall; fall plantings are guaranteed through the following June. At the appropriate time, trained Red Stem staff will visit your garden and determine which plants may need to be replaced. Plant mortality that has been caused by insufficient watering, overwatering, or neglect is not covered under this guarantee. Red Stem provides the replacement plants free of charge, but we do charge for the labor of planting. Alternatively, we can drop off the plants at your home for you to take care of the planting.
During the first year after planting, when root systems are not yet established, see Watering Guide. In subsequent years, a well-designed native garden will require no additional water except in periods of extended drought, when watering in the morning every few days—before the heat and sun of midday—can keep your garden looking fresh. In most cases, though, your native garden will recover, even if you don’t water in dry periods.
Our design team is expert in creating native gardens that work, considering each plant’s native community and habitat, height, color, tendency to spread and other variables, as well as your soil, light, water flows, pH, etc. A design helps ensure a beautiful, manageable garden.
We will gladly incorporate your prized ornamental plants into our designs.
If low maintenance is your primary concern, let your designer know. Native plant gardens require little maintenance once established, but this quality can be enhanced in your design. Your garden will require some maintenance—but it will never need fertilizer and once established, will need no watering except during periods of extreme drought. The first couple of years, however, will require weeding and watering, and once established, occasional removal of species that may have gotten too exuberant, trimming or staking for improved aesthetics, and other care. See above FAQ under stewardship, “What does stewardship service do?”, and our Watering Guide.
Yes, your designer can pick appropriate plant species like grasses and sedges that are wind pollinated. We can put flowering plants that are insect pollinated in the back of the beds or far corners of the yard where pollinators won’t come close to people.