The Washington County Master Gardener Plant Sale and Garden Expo is right around the corner on May 16. 
Beyond amazing plants and the diagnostic clinic, there are also landscape design experts on-site to answer your questions. And if you have dull shears or gardening tools, a professional blade sharpener will help you get your tools ready for gardening season. This is a major fundraising event that supports the work of the Washington County Master Gardener Program.
Donna Lovell, a 3-year volunteer with the Washington County Master Gardener Program, offers more event details.
“We are holding our Annual Plant Sale and Garden Expo from 9am to 1pm on Saturday, May 16. This is hosted by the Washington County Master Gardener program. At the event, home gardeners can buy a really wide selection of plants, everything from native plants to Minnesota seed trial winners, plants specifically for a prairie garden, monarch and pollinator plants, grasses, shade plants, a whole variety of vegetables, both heirloom and hybrid tomatoes, herbs, houseplants—just a real wide variety of plants available. There is also a diagnostic clinic, which is free. You can bring in plants that you have problems with, and Master Gardeners will look at what you have and diagnose your problem, you know, potentially diagnose your problem and give you recommendations. Our work that we do is science-based research from the University of Minnesota. We Master Gardener volunteers take a course on how to work in the garden and best practices for finding science-based answers to a whole variety of questions designed to work within the environment so as not to harm the environment, but rather to enhance the environment.”
Well, you know, I am curious about how much money I would need to bring to this. Do you guys take cash, check, card, or PayPal? How does that look?
“We take cash, check, or credit card. We encourage people to bring wagons and that kind of thing, you know, to bring their goodies home with them.”
How about a flatbed trailer? How big of a wagon can we bring?
“Well…”
It’s a joke.
“I was going to say it’s just pretty crowded in there. It’s a big space, but it’s a little crowded!”
You know what? I’m really looking forward to this, because this is the time of year where we are out in the garden, and we want it to be beautiful, and we love our master gardeners, and we want to support them and their work. So this is a great opportunity to do that.
“That is great. You know, the people who choose the plants for the plant sale are looking to get specifically varieties that really thrive in Minnesota so that people aren’t having to, you know, replace perennials every year that turn out not to be perennials because they’re not ideal for our environment, and they really, you know, really, the idea is to get plants that really thrive in this area so that people can have beautiful gardens that are great for the environment, for our pollinator friends, and really enhance not only, you know, personal space, their garden, but also the environment.”
Absolutely. And one thing you mentioned was the diagnostic. If people maybe didn’t have a plant problem, but they just had general questions, is it okay to approach the diagnostic clinic and just ask any question that they have about plants?
“Absolutely, absolutely. And the master gardeners are there to either answer questions at the time or, often, if we can’t immediately find the answer or don’t know the answer. Oftentimes, people will provide their email address, and then the master gardener will do some research for them—again, science-based research through the University of Minnesota Extension—to find the best answers for people. So even if they don’t or can’t provide the answer immediately, they’re more than happy to provide the information whenever they can find it.”
Excellent. So, just for a reminder for folks, what day is this happening at the plant?
The Plant Sale (and Garden Expo) will happen on Saturday, May 16, from 9am to 1pm at the Washington County Fairgrounds, which is located at HWY 5 and Manning Avenue in Lake Elmo.
[Click the soundbite to listen to the report.]