VA State Arboretum Plant Sale this weekend!

The annual Mother's Day Weekend Garden Fair is this weekend at the State Arboretum (Blandy Experimental Station in Boyce, VA - just outside of Winchester on Route 50). This will be the largest fair ever with over 80 vendors!!! Hoping that some of our Mid-Atlantic DG'ers will attend and be sure to introduce yourself if you see us at our booth.

Link for more information and directions http://www.virginia.edu/blandy/gfhome.html

This sale is always wonderful. Any gardener within a 2 hour drive owes it to themselves to be there. You won't be sorry. Even if you were to find nothing to buy (I'd consider that very unlikely) touring the Arboretum grounds and gardens is a lovely way to spend an hour or two.

Thanks for the link. I have wanted to get out to the Arboretum. I am thinking that leaving the wife at home to watch the three boys on Mother's Day would not be a good move on my part. ;-) If the weather is nice, I am seriously considering throwing the three boys in the minivan for the trek. I see there are a number of activities for children. If that does not work I can at least tempt them with brownies and ice cream.

- Brent

see you all there -

I love this show. Not sure if I'll be able to get there this year but I highly recommend it. Lots of vendors with very nice plants, lots of demonstrations plus the state arboretum grounds to enjoy.

There will be a Daves Garden booth, rcn48?

I have to assume that she means "Rick's Custom Nursery"...but a Dave's Garden booth would be cool!!

- Brent

Brent, promise the kids if they're good you'll stop at Dinosaurland on the way home. http://www.dinosaurland.com/

gosh hart I didn't know dinosaur land had a website! Learn something new everyday

hart, sorry for the confusion, yes Brent's right, it's our booth, but we always have a poster promoting DG :)

Brent, not sure how old your boys are, but the Arboretum volunteers always have activities for the kids and they seem to have alot of fun. Last fall at the Arbor Fest sale, the kids made scarecrows!

Looks like good weather this weekend so hoping to see a few of you there :)

Debbie

Dinosaur Land you say? It looks interesting and brings back memories of a childhood trip to a similar place in Michigan.

The boys are 2, 4 and 6. They might be a bit of a handful but they like to "help out" in the garden and they would have fun picking out some annuals or a few plants. They would enjoy the nature walk and some of the children's activities. I hope to make it there on Sunday.

- Brent

So what did you buy? Me? Nothing. ;-( The kids had fun with the children's activities (potted some seeds, planted a geranium, made some paper flowers, went on a nature walk, ...) and the wife had a few hours to herself on Mother's Day. I stopped by and got to say hello to Debbie. Rick's Custom Nursery had a lot of great looking plants on display. It was just starting to rain as I left on Sunday and I got dumped on before I got home...I felt bad for the merchants that were likely packing up in the pouring rain.

- Brent

We went Saturday bright and early and it was a gorgeous morning. I got 6 of Debbie's hostas - Stained Glass, 2 Alex Summers, 2 Island Charm, and Praying Hands. Also 2 Persicaria 'Red Dragon,' Rumex, herbs, 2 lovely mugo pines the Arboretum was selling, 6 fans each of daylilies 'Midnight Magic' and 'Hot Ember,' 6 different thymes, all creeping, one Osteospermum (don't know the variety but it has creamy petals and a very blue center), and a lot of different sun Coleus and succulents. I wanted to get started planting them today, but with all the rain last night and this morning, it's pretty slippery on my hills (which is the bulk of my garden); so I got to plant only some that are being potted before the rain started again.

Brent and mickgene, great to meet both of you this weekend!

Brent, sorry the weather took a turn for the worse just as you arrived but glad your sons got a chance to enjoy some of the activities before the rains came. Fortunately, the rain subsided and the sun came out in time for our pack up to head home :) Maybe you can bring your wife to the Arborfest sale in October and the boys could participate in more of the activities and make their own scarecrow!

We stopped on our way home yesterday at Kim's Greenhouses in Broadway and picked up some of our favorite annuals for the garden - so now we're hoping for decent weather this week to get them all planted. I was especially pleased to find one of the variegated Plectranthus that I've been looking for the past couple of years :) We used to have one in a hanging basket on our deck 4 years ago and it was gorgeous - hopefully I'll be able to get this one to look as beautiful and not kill it!
Debbie

Nice haul, Mickgene!

Kims is one place around here I've never managed to visit. Do they have perennials or just annuals?

I love plectranthus, too, Debbie. The now defunct Edinburg Garden Center used to sell it and I haven't been able to find it anywhere else since they went out of business.

hart, didn't you go?

No. I hadn't planned on going - too much to do this weekend. Turns out I wouldn't have been able to go anyway. I have a rotten, awful cold and my father has been in the hospital since last Thursday. He's going home today, thank goodness. I haven't been able to visit thanks to the cold because his immunity is still down from the chemo. So I've been fretting and calling umpteen times a day.

hart, we visited Kim's last year for the first time. They have a great assortment of annuals and some perennials as well, although the concentration is more on annuals. I have to say that this year our visit was three weeks later and we were a little disappointed even though we picked up a good assortment of coleus, etc. I'd say if you were going to make the trip another year to definitely get there before the first of May. My only complaint with their plants is that most of them are in 3"- 4" pots versus six-packs, hence a heftier price :( But the plants are healthy and really take off in the garden. Sorry you couldn't make it to the sale last weekend, but there's always the Arborfest in October!

I'll just have to make the side trip to Broadway next time we go to Harrisonburg.

hart....next time you come to harrisonburg, I assume your coming in on 33, take a right on Indian Trail road at Keezletown, drive about 5 miles on this road and look for nesselrodt's greenhouse on the right. I absolutely love them. There not as big as some but they are reasonably priced. I was able to create 2 mother's day persent one with Helitrope, lobelia, johny jump ups, and the other of 2 verbascums and 2 of something called dainty dark i think...it has red and green foliage and looks like a small 3 lobed shamrock. It says it has a tiny white flower in summer. I was able to get all this for about $20. There really big into vegetables and their tomatoes grow like crazy.

Thanks, Bluejuls. I'll look for them next time we come down. We come in on 81 to 33. I'm around an hour north and just a bit east of Harrisonburg.

Maybe they're kin to me. My great-great-great grandmother was a Nesselrodt. LOL

This message was edited May 17, 2006 2:38 PM