Plant sale set to bloom

Mar. 20—For plant lovers, enthusiast and interested parties, the Sampson County Master Gardeners are sending out their invitation again to join them for the upcoming 2024 Spring Plant Sale.

"Gardening friends, spring weather will soon be here to stay! It's time to freshen up your yard with new trees and shrubs, and to enjoy some colorful blooming plants," Sampson County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers said.

"Make plans to visit the Sampson Master Gardener spring plant sale to choose from a variety of woody ornamental shrubs, azaleas, trees, and greenhouse plants. Our traditional red geraniums and pink supertunias are healthy and beginning to flower. Before long, they will be in full bloom! We also have herb seedlings started; they should be ready to transplant and sell by early April."

The official sale begins next Wednesday, March 27, and runs until Saturday, April 20. As it is annually, the sale will be located at the greenhouse on the campus of Sampson County Cooperative Extension, 55 Agriculture Lane in Clinton.

Times to shop during the event are on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 2 to 5:30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Those are not the only times as the Master Gardeners mentioned other times can be requested by appointment by calling 910 592-7161 to do so.

This year will bring something new as well, as an Early Bird Sale Day which is set for Thursday, March 21, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. As for what and why they're holding the early sale, fellow Master Gardener Ann Butler shared the details.

"For the first time, we're going to have an early bird sale this year," Butler said. "People will be able to come out and if they see things they like they can go ahead and get them. One of the reasons were doing it is that some of our Azaleas start blooming early and in the past, when we've started our sale, some of the azaleas were already spent and there's no real color on them."

"So we're starting early this year to give people the opportunity to do that," she said. "Also they can go ahead and, say if they have some special occasions coming up, and they want to go ahead and get items when they are just freshly blooming, now they can."

"It's an excellent time for them to come out and do that so we decided to give the early bird a shot," Butler added. "Then when we start the regular sale afterwards, then that's when we hope people will be coming out and looking at our large assortment of other plants that we'll have out there."

Needless to say the Master Gardeners are excited about bringing another sale to the community. They'd share their thoughts on that very topic and some of the things they're looking forward to.

"We have a bunch of ferns that we're growing and maintaining off sight," Marcia Edgerton said. "We will be bringing those in the next couple of weeks and that's another new thing for us. Hopefully, as each year progresses, we'll keep adding and adding to them so I'm excited about that."

"That always a goal for us, trying to add something that we've not had before," she said. "Plus, we always look at the previous year and see what people have asked for, then we try to accommodate that in the upcoming year. Like last year, we had a lot of people asking about herbs so we're also growing some herbs off sight and in the greenhouse to make those available for customer. So, like I said, we're building from year to year on what we have."

"The quality of our plants this year is just excellent," Sue Williams added. "We've had great growing conditions in our greenhouse. "The weather has cooperated and I think our customers will be very pleased with the quality of the plants this year."

Reach Michael B. Hardison at 910-249-4231. Follow us on Twitter at @SamsponInd, like us on Facebook, and check out our Instagram at @thesampsonindependent.