Find plants for your home or community garden plot, right in the heart of Boston.
Plan Your Visit
- Overview
- Ideas for Your Visit
- Admission & Hours
- Directions
- What You'll Find
- Facilities
- Venue Rental
Overview
City Natives serves as The Trustees’ native plant nursery and horticultural learning center for the people of Boston and beyond. The roughly half-acre site holds a modest greenhouse and nursery where we raise vegetable seedlings, as well as plants native to our local climate for community garden common areas and for restoration projects throughout the city. Seasonal plant sales are open to all; please visit our website for details. The greenhouse doubles as a gardening classroom for our educational programs and for training volunteers.
City Natives is also home to our Learning Garden—with interpretive garden beds that demonstrate intensive gardening techniques unique to urban and community gardens—as well as an apiary, native plant display gardens, a wildflower meadow, and a small orchard. Volunteers help us care for and maintain City Natives. Please contact us if you’d like to lend a hand.
City Natives is open during set hours or by appointment for plant sales, educational field trips, volunteer opportunities, and workshops.
Ideas for Your Visit
Shop
Cold hardy greens, native perennials, trees, & shrubs, season extension supplies, and expert advice! All of our plant varieties are suited to growing in Boston and the surrounding areas. Our plants are sustainably grown in City Native’s compost-heated greenhouse.
Pickups available through September: Thursdays 10-3 & Saturdays 8-12. You can pre-order online or come for walk-in sales.
Workshops
Attend a workshop in our Seed, Sow & Grow series.
Field Trips
Schedule a field trip for your school or organization to learn about native plants and pollinators.
Admission & Hours
It is free to enter but is only open by appointment or during nursery retail hours.
Directions
30 Edgewater Drive
Mattapan, MA 02126
Get directions on Google Maps.
We’re located a short walk from the Mattapan Square Trolley Station and Blue Hill Avenue bus lines. Parking is available along Edgewater Drive.
What You'll Find
Make sure we’re open! Nursery retail hours vary seasonally. If you aren’t coming for a specific event, contact citynatives@thetrustees.org before coming.
September Plant Sales
Cold hardy greens, native perennials, trees, & shrubs, season extension supplies, and expert advice! All of our plant varieties are suited to growing in Boston and the surrounding areas. Our plants are sustainably grown in City Native’s compost-heated greenhouse.
Pickups available through September: Thursdays 10-3 & Saturdays 8-12. You can pre-order online or come for walk-in sales.
Facilities
There is running water and a portable toilet facility.
Venue Rental
Contact citynatives@thetrustees.org to discuss rentals.
