“Earth laughs in flowers.”
Ah, spring—so long in arriving and so indecisive about staying. We have delighted in the snowdrops and crocuses, only to have them disappear under a coating of snow. Amazingly, they reappeared unharmed, evidently liking the weather more than we did. Now we see hardy perennials up a few inches in our gardens—and we also see bare spots, just crying for new plants to fill them. Despite some very chilly days, members of the Garden Club of Harvard have been busy since mid-April, digging shrubs and perennials from their gardens and potting them up. They will grow perfectly in those empty places.
The Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale Saturday, May 19, from 9 a.m. to noon. But sale-goers won’t find the sale on the Common, where it has been for as long as club members can remember. The sale this year will be at Westward Orchards, 178 Mass. Ave., where there’s plenty of parking. On an array of tables at the back of the building, shoppers will find things pretty much as they have been for the past several years: shrubs and hardy perennials, annuals in full bloom from Lancaster Gardens, and veggies and herbs. As always, knowledgeable club members will be out in force, answering questions and giving helpful tips.
Karen Green helps a customer choose a perennial at a previous plant sale.
(Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)/p>
The Garden Club is a nonprofit organization, and the annual plant sale is its only fundraiser, with proceeds going for beautifying public spaces around town, the club’s garden therapy program, educational programs, and supporting conservation in Harvard. This year’s co-chairwomen for the plant sale are Kathy Hewett and Janice Rusiecki. While all members work on the sale in some capacity, the co-chairwomen do the lionesses’ share of the work.
Club members say they loved having the sale on the Common, but didn’t love the backbreaking job of loading up hundreds of plants from Westward Orchards’ farm on Oak Hill Road, where they were potted, driving them to the Common, and unloading the heavy trays of perennials. For years on the day before the sale, club members also hauled heavy makeshift tables from the Westward Orchards farmstand, where they were stored, to the Common. Several years ago the club began renting tables from Moore’s in Ayer and having Boy Scouts help set them up. But club members still had to transport plants from the farm to the center on the morning of the sale. Recently, the club has potted plants at the farmstand, and this year Westward Orchards offered the club the potting space to use for the sale as well.
New location; all else the same
But, besides the new location, everything else about the plant sale is staying the same—because it works. If shoppers are looking for a newly introduced plant variety just seen in a catalog, chances are it won’t be found at the sale. The perennials are all dug from well-established Harvard gardens, and while they may not be the “latest,” they are tried-and-true and include such workhorses as pink and white bleeding heart, astilbe, hosta, Shasta daisy, coneflower, grasses, black-eyed Susan, iris, and daylilies, many of them named.
Each perennial plant will have two sticks in it. A white stick will identify the plant with a clear label giving name and growing conditions. The colored stick is a price stick and corresponds to a color-coded price list posted in three or four locations around the tables. The perennials will be divided into sun-loving or shade-loving, and there will be many Garden Club members to help you navigate.
According to veggie guru Barbara Heim, nasturtiums, which are classified as both an herb and a vegetable, sold out last year. This year they will appear in greater number and in four different varieties. Nasturtiums are cheerful flowers in shades of yellow and orange; they make an attractive and spicy addition to salads and may be used to repel insects. There will be various maturities of tomatoes, chosen for taste and disease resistance, early greens, snap peas, and several choices of peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and squash. Most plants are from seeds chosen from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and are grown to order locally at Herbs & Harvest of Groton.
The herb tables, run by Theresa and Bob Ledoux, will feature herbs used for cooking, as well as those for fragrance. There will be parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and the less lyrical but just as worthy basil, cilantro, dill, and oregano. These and other plants are grown specifically for the Garden Club by Herbs & Harvest. This year the Ledoux team has ordered a very limited number of herb-and-flower baskets.
Fran Maiore, in charge of annuals, has ordered even more geraniums than last year because of their popularity. She and her committee will shop at Lancaster Gardens for a variety of popular annuals like petunias, as well as some more unusual plants. Maiore said she knows they will be purchasing a wide selection of “beautiful, blooming plants” to resell at competitive prices.
Once shoppers have finished—or have done a first-round—they take their plants to a tallying table, where they receive a slip of paper with the total amount due. This gets collected by a cashier, and payment can be by check or cash. Checks should be made out to Garden Club of Harvard.
Gardeners are tough, and the sale will happen sun, rain, fog—or snow!
