A tree with a full canopy full of small white flowers.
Fall is an ideal time to plant flowering and fruiting perennial trees and shrubs.

Heather N. Kolich, ANR Agent, UGA Extension Forsyth County

Fall is an ideal time to add perennial trees and shrubs to your landscape. Because the root systems of perennials continue to grow even when the rest of the plant is dormant, fall planting gives the root system the opportunity to establish in their new environment without having to undergo the heat and drought stress of summer or sacrifice energy to foliage and fruit growth.

Each fall, Forsyth County Extension hosts a special plant sale featuring native ornamentals and a mix of homeowner friendly fruit- and nut-bearing trees, shrubs, brambles, and vines. Plant species and cultivars were carefully chosen for ease of care and excellent performance in North Georgia. These plants will add beauty, flowers, and fragrance to your landscape; restore biodiversity to our local ecosystem; and provide food sources for pollinators, wildlife, and our human families!

How does the Extension Fall Plant Sale work? The Forsyth County Extension Fall Plant Sale is a pre-order, one-stop pick-up sale. Plants are provided by Georgia wholesale growers, and proceeds from the sale help fund Forsyth County Extension community education programs.

What type of plants may be offered? For your foodscaping projects, we have some excellent small fruits and fruit or nut producing trees. Planting several different species can keep you in fresh, home-grown food across several seasons.

Small Fruits grow on bushes, brambles, and vines, and require full sun. This year, we’re offering nine cultivars of rabbiteye blueberries (spring harvest), four varieties of thornless blackberries (summer harvest), two types of raspberries (everbearing), three fig varieties, and several self-fertile bunch grapes and muscadines (late summer-fall harvest).

a bunch of ripe blueberries on the bush.

Tree Fruits offered this year include seven apple varieties that ripen from August to November, two pear cultivars, and two Asian persimmons (one is a dwarf). These fruits require full sun and cross-pollination.

Native Fruit and Nut Trees restore biodiversity to developed areas and support pollinators. As natural elements in the local ecosystem, they’re troubled by few pests. As understory trees, they tolerate partial shade conditions and are smaller than non-native cultivated fruit trees, making them excellent choices for residential lots. They’re also great for attracting native wildlife and for food plots. The following native plants are available for ordering:

American hazelnuts are winter-flowering, large shrubs that produce edible, fall-ripening nuts.

American persimmons are drought tolerant trees that produce orange, fall-ripening fruits after giving a brilliant display of scarlet fall foliage.

Elderberry is a large shrub for moist sites. Spring clusters of lemon-scented white flowers ripen to edible berries in late summer.

Chickasaw plums produce fragrant early spring flowers that become cherry-sized yellow to red plums in May. They prefer full sun and tolerate dry, poor soil. Maturing at 5-6’ high and 10’ wide, this thorny bush is an excellent choice for hedge plantings.

Southern crabapples are small trees offering hundreds of fragrant, pale-pink spring flowers, followed by large, green, sour apples in the fall that are perfect for jelly.

Native Ornamental Trees and Shrubs are fragrant, flowering choices for small spaces.

an eastern rosebud full of pink flowers.

Eastern Redbuds are small (20’-30’) trees for shade to part-shade. Abundant flower clusters appear along branches in early spring.

White Fringetrees are small (12’-20’), multi-stemmed, and slow-growing. This sun-to-part-shade tree produces abundant fluffy, white blooms in spring.

Sweetbay Magnolia is a long-lived, semi-evergreen, tree with a spreading, upright form, aromatic leaves, and fragrant white flowers.

Beautyberry on the bush.

Beautyberry bushes are drought-tolerant, deciduous shrubs that produce a stunning display of purple berry clusters in the fall.

Virginia Sweetspire grows 3-5 feet tall in sun to partial shade. It produces flows of fragrant

white flowers in May-June, then brilliant foliage in the fall.

Fragrant leaves and twigs give Spicebush its name. Yellow summer flowers ripen to small red berries that feed songbirds. It’s also a host plant for spicebush swallowtail butterflies.

a spicebush butterfly, mostly black with a bit of light blue near the bottom of the wings.
Beautiful spicebush swallowtail butterflies rely on spicebush as a host plant for their larvae.
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