Guidelines for the plant sale
Please consider donating plants this fall for the 2020 Master Gardener Plant Sale
We first need to make sure that your garden does not have jumping worms; unfortunately, we can’t accept donations from any yards that do have them. If you are not sure, try laying some boards, stepstones or any broad flat object in various areas of your beds and leave them for a few days. Jumping worms love to hang out in transitional areas between the surface of the soil and things set on top of the soil. They like areas behind plastic or wood edging, and loose soil mounded up after digging a hole, and especially areas under fallen leaves. Also look for the granular soil signature. Please see the attached protocol for plant donations and jumping worms. (Although it says 2019, we will be using it for the 2020 sale.)
When you are working in your perennial beds this fall, look for plants that need dividing and can be donated for our Plant Sale next year. We have a species list in the attached document. We have already started dividing, digging up and heeling in plants in a large mulched bed on the west end of the Teaching Garden. If you have plants that could be donated now, we would greatly appreciate if you could divide them, rinse off the roots and bring them to the Extension for heeling in over the winter. We will pot them in the Spring. Simply contact Karen Allenstein at kallenstein@charter.net to arrange for her to meet you in the garden to heel in your donations any time between October 1 and while the plant still looks healthy.
The fall is a great time to divide hostas which are in high demand (known varieties only for the sale). In fact most perennials divide well in the fall. If you don’t know the specific plant cultivar, please provide a picture of the plant in flower, and record the height of the plant and when it blooms. Be sure to take a close-up picture of the blooms. If you know the cultivar, we can obtain a picture online.
Please do not guess the name of the plant. There are so many daylilies or hostas that are similar. We want to be as accurate as possible. It is better to have a good picture and an accurate description than to give the plant the wrong name.
Remember, If you are donating an iris or daylily and you only know the color, not the name of the cultivar, we will need a photo.
Thanks for all your help in making our plant sale a success!
Master Gardener Plant Sale Committee