Beat the Winter Blues at the Spring Plant Sale

After this chilly, wet winter, who’s ready for spring planting?

The weather finally seems to be looking up, just in time for the Duke Gardens Plant Sale, March 30, 8 am to noon. Durham Master Gardeners have spent the gloomy winter months planting seeds and digging and tending plants to sell at our booth at the sale—in many cases trying to relieve seasonal affective disorder by basking in the fluorescent glow of grow lights!

Our booth this year promises hundreds—literally more than a thousand—unique new and old-fashioned perennials, shrubs, houseplants, and native plants as well as specialty and heirloom vegetables, including tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, eggplant, lettuces, and herbs.

The Plant Sale is our biggest fundraiser of the year, and funds raised support Cooperative Extension community garden programs and educational events throughout Durham County.

Here are just a few of the unique items we’re offering this year:

adorable dish gardens, featuring Hens and Chicks and Jade plants
Aleppo pepper seedlings—a popular gourmet spicy pepper from Syria—make your own seasoning mix by drying the peppers and mixing with olive oil and salt
Purple Zi Su Perilla or Shisho—an Asian herb that tastes of basil and mint, used to season vinegar and pink rice
An amazing assortment of hard-to-find Asian mustards and other Asian vegetables
Asclepias tuberosa—orange butterfly weed—a favorite of monarch butterflies
Giant Cambodian Green eggplant—a beautiful and exotic green and white Asian import
Lime and Japanese citrus trees
Baby Paw Paw trees
Many varieties of Hellebores
Night Blooming Cereus (a succulent with exotic fragrant blooms)—imagine it scenting your porch on a cool summer evening!
Many varieties of colorful and unusual Coleus
The ever popular Zinnia seedlings
And much, much more!

We hope to see you at the plant sale on March 30. If you are a member of Duke Gardens, you can get a head start at the member pre-sale on March 29, 4 to 6 pm.

The Potting Party was a Happening!

Durham Master Gardeners enjoyed a rare sunny day in February for the Spring Potting Party. Volunteers delivered plants from their gardens, and Master Gardeners divided, potted, and labeled the plants. Other volunteers took plants home to babysit until the Plant Sale.