By Melinda Heigel, with Lissa Lutz, Lisa Nadler, and Bev Tisci, NC State Extension Master GardenerSM volunteers of Durham County
Our annual Friends of Durham County Master Gardener plant sale is in the books! If you joined us on April 11th for the big event, we want to offer you a little behind the scenes intel about what it takes to bring you some of the gorgeous plants you purchased and revisit the day through the stunning images of our Extension Master GardenerSM volunteer and photojournalist Allie Mullin. If you weren’t there, we want to whet your appetite for 2027!
Just a fraction of the Extension Master Gardener volunteers responsible for bringing you over 4,000 plants at our recent annual plant sale. Here, the group is smiling and excited to serve just minutes before the sale begins. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)
Plant Sale Success: It’s All in the Setup
Volunteers transported, unloaded, set up, and labeled all the plants in just one day prior to the sale. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)
It literally takes a community of Extension Master Gardener volunteers to put on a blockbuster plant sale. Over 75 volunteers and multiple teams with expertise in every imaginable area spent a year preparing for one Saturday-morning event! Plant sale Co-Chair Lissa Lutz credits the success of this year’s event to these volunteers. As a dedicated, long-time coordinator of the sale, she shared this year saw “a core group of seasoned veterans but also new ideas and tremendous depth of expertise offered by new team members. A few of their novel approaches and accomplishments for the 2026 sale included the following. (To be sure, there were tons more….)
- The Vegetable Team offered more plants for sale than ever before and introduced new compact varieties to work in smaller-sized environments.
- The Houseplants Team tweaked their plant curation and offered the most appropriate plants–all in unique pots.
- The Native Plant Team had a dedicated group of seed starters who produced an astonishing selection of native plants, many from locally collected seeds.
- The Propagation Team multiplied the bounty and contributed unique, well-tended plants to this year’s event.
- The Plant Divisions Team potted up countless robust, consistent quality flats.
- The Communications Teams got out the word in advance about our inventory so shoppers could make a wish list.
- Both the Volunteer Management and Hospitality Teams made sure that our plant pros were fresh, available, and standing by to help you in any way.
- The Checkout Team efficiently checked out shoppers with a new pricing system based on container size that hopefully simplified the customer experience.
Additional Innovations that Made the 2026 Plant Sale Sizzle
(Left to right) This year we wanted you to have a better look at what you were buying. Clearer plant signs with photos and easy-to-read details enhanced the shoppers’ experience. Our plant sale Co-Chair Marcia Kirinus was dedicated solely to ensuring we were offering the best plants possible. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)
- Enhanced Signage. We introduced new signage throughout the sale that gave our shoppers more consistent information on all plants and veggies complete with growing conditions, interesting plant facts, and photos of mature/blooming specimens. We even designated keystone plants, a sub-category of native plants that are essential to the local food web.
- Quality Assurance Leader. Plant sale Co-Chair Marcia Kirinus filled a new role this year as our quality assurance “czar.” With her years of experience in professional and research greenhouses along with her Master Gardner volunteer bona fides, she shared her knowledge with all our our volunteer growers to produce the highest quality plants. This included setting up light carts for seed starting to the final trimming and pruning to make each plant look its best. She was instrumental in teaching all seed starters, new and experienced, how to grow the healthiest, hardiest plants.
- Customer service enhancements. More volunteer runners helped shoppers to their cars with their plants. Another novel idea? The plant parking lot. We also introduced a new holding area where shoppers could “park” plants they intended to buy while they continued to browse and shop.
Sale Day Excitement
If you know Carly Simon’s tune “Anticipation,” hum it to yourself when surveying the photos below. While the line for the sale lived up to its reputation (our first customer arrived at 8:30 am for the 10:00 am start), many Extension Master Gardener volunteers were on hand to check lists of plants for our customers, hand out free seeds, answer a host of gardening inquires, and keep the crowd pumped up.
There were all sorts of folks–those with a printed and highlighted list of plants they wanted to take home, new gardeners looking to build a landscape, veggie lovers searching for just the right tomato, and the simply the plant curious. Those in line enjoyed the beauty of our award-winning Demo Garden and wanted to find some of the garden specimens inside at the sale to take home. Without doubt, the mood was celebratory for the more than 320 community members who showed up to shop for plants and support our mission.
What those in line couldn’t see was the excitement of the volunteers huddling up for one last briefing before the sale began. Our plant sale volunteers, (Volunteer Management Team leader Lisa Nadler rocking her signature whirligig hat below) had efficiently staged over 4,000 plants in one day, and Nadler placed our plant experts strategically throughout the sale to assist you. And of course, all those plants lined up and ready to make their debut.
(Image credit: Allie Mullin)
Ready, Set, Shop!
Full boxes and full hearts. Volunteers and community shoppers interact at the sale. (Lower right) Vegetable Team leader Bev Tisci shares her expertise and the joy of growing edibles. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)
As the sale began, the atmosphere inside the building was electric with smiles all around. As you stepped inside, the fantastic scents of the veggie and herb room tickled your nose long before you reached its threshold. The vast abundance of plants, some of which were in full spring bloom, were a “masterpiece for the eyes” according to one native plant fan.
Bev Tisci, Leader of the Veggie Team and Seed Starters Group had a ball educating community members about growing edibles and introducing the new mini-vegetables. After consulting with one shopper who picked up a couple of plants and went on her way, Tisci recalled the woman later returned and jokingly yelled out to her, “I used to like you!” Puzzled, Tisci asked, “Oh, no! What did I do?” The laughing shopper showed her a box brimming with plants–far more than she’d ever intended to purchase. Like all plant lovers, she just couldn’t resist and left the sale excited about all the vegetables she be eating later this summer.
The Proof is in the Plants–and People
(Left to right) Plant sale Co-Chair Lissa Lutz busy prepping for the sale. After a banner sell-out, we closed the 2026 sale with gratitude. (Image credit: Allie Mullin)
Thanks to both our community of Extension Master Gardener volunteers and the overwhelming support of Durham plant enthusiasts, this year’s event was the most successful yet. The proceeds of the sale will fund our work of providing research-based gardening education to the residents of Durham County and beyond. Reflecting on the event since the dust has settled, Co-Chair Lissa Lutz, put it this way:
“The plant sale really exemplifies the spirit of the Master Gardener community, with so many people coming together in so many different ways, each offering time and talents that together creates a whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts. It is for this reason that I continue to play a role in this crazy-amazing event!”
We can’t wait to see you at next spring’s sale. Keep an eye out on our website’s plant sale tab on our menu where we’ll be posting our 2027 date.
Resources and Additional Information
Keystone Plants From Our 2026 Plant Sale
3-Part Series: Starting Seeds Indoors with a Light Cart–Article 1, Article 2, Article 3
Edited by Melinda Heigel, NC State Extension Master Gardener SM volunteer of Durham County
Article Short Link https://wp.me/p2nIr1-7ox
