The annual Patrick County Master Gardener Plant Sale is set for Saturday, May 10 at the Rotary Building in Stuart from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Plant sale chairman Ginnie Conaway said the event has been going on for over 20 years.
The plants typically range from $2-$10, “and that’s very few of them” that cost $10. “That would be big shrubs or something like that. Generally, we have four packs of tomato plants for $2,” she said.
While the group’s native plant sale is in the fall, Conaway said a lot of local perennials will still be available for purchase.
“So, this will be just about anything. You might find house plants, but definitely vegetables, perennials, a few annuals, we will probably have a ton of daffodil bulbs, iris, hostas, day lilies” and other plants, she said.
If possible, the organization tries to let people know which color flowers will be at the sale
“Day lilies aren’t always possible because they don’t bloom before the sale,” she said.
Conaway anticipates hundreds of people will attend the event.
“It is an enormous mob scene at 8 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. then it finally trickles down a little bit. But people stand in line for an hour in the rain to get in when we open the doors. It’s amazing,” she said.
While in the past the non-profit organization has donated the profits from the plant sale to a local charity, this year the funds will go to its recently started grant program.
“We decided that did not fit in with our purpose of raising awareness of gardening and so on and so forth. We encourage people to apply for a grant to help with food insecurity. Mostly we help people build gardens, raise beds, buy the seeds, the fertilizer, things like that,” she said.
Conaway said there were five grant recipients this year with the group taking more next year.
The funds will also be used for other projects including purchasing materials the group uses for its programs at the Stuart Farmers’ Market, its learning garden, and purchasing plants for different events.
“So, there’s a lot of other ways that money gets utilized,” she said.
For more information, go to Facebook.com/PatrickCountyMasterGardeners or email pcmgassn@gmail.com.
