Shawnee County Extension Master Gardeners hosting plant sale May 7
Clear your calendars for the morning of Saturday, May 7. Shawnee County Extension Master Gardeners are once again holding their annual plant sale fundraiser, and for the first time since 2019 it will be open to the public.
The sale is a primary fundraiser for the Extension Master Gardeners, with funds contributing to community horticultural education, maintaining our nine teaching gardens, youth and adult programs and helping to feed our community fresh produce.
At this year’s sale, you can expect to find all your old favorites: annual flowers, herbs, patio pots, hanging baskets, both shade-loving and sun-loving perennial plants, hot and sweet peppers, and all the tomatoes you could ever want.
In addition to these sale staples, we will also have a large garden shed section with indoor plants, garden tools and hand-painted bird houses.
As with past years, trained Extension Master Gardeners will have an information booth staffed and ready to answer your gardening questions on the plants you purchase or the plants you have at home.
There will also be a pollinator booth to help guide you toward the many pollinator-friendly plants we are selling or to answer questions about supporting pollinators in your garden.
For your shopping convenience, we will have local ROTC students available to help you carry your purchases along with cardboard flats to help juggle six-packs and pots. We welcome shoppers to bring their own carriers or carts.
New this year, we will have a loading zone after you purchase to ensure you can buy more than you want to carry back to your car.
As with previous years, all the annual plants are grown by our Extension Master Gardeners in our greenhouse. Each plant is grown from seed or plugs with careful attention given to the quality of every plant.
All the perennials at the sale come from the gardens of our Extension Master Gardeners. While we will not know all the types of perennial plants until the week of the sale, we often have a wide selection of hosta, iris, daylily and many native plants, including yarrow and coneflower.
The sale will begin at 9 a.m., although we often have a line forming well before the start. The sale will end at noon or when we sell out. The sale will be at Agriculture Hall, 1 Expo Drive in Topeka. Agriculture Hall is at the corner of S.W. 17th and Topeka Boulevard. We will use the full length of the building to allow for more room for shoppers to spread out. Cards, checks or cash are accepted. See you there.
Ariel Whitely-Noll is the horticulture agent for Shawnee County Research and Extension. She can be reached at arielw@ksu.edu.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Shawnee County Extension Master Gardeners hosting annual plant sale
