Georgia Mountains Master Gardeners (GMMG) hosted its 2007 Garden Expo, in conjunction with the local Mountain Flower Art Festival, in Dahlonega over the weekend of May 19-20.Although a series of speakers were scheduled to talk on gardening topics, a wildflower display was created, and children’s activities were planned, the primary purpose of the Expo was to serve as the group’s major fund-raiser through selling plant material grown by GMMG members.The plant sale, itself, also proved to be an educational experience for the public who attended.
GMMG members, wearing green aprons, greeted potential customers. The Master Gardeners answered questions, further described plant material, and helped the customers find “just the right” plant to meet their needs.
The educational aspect of the plant sale did not end there. GMMG members had prepared detailed information sheets on many of the plants. Some of the things we learned:
·Hardy begonia (Begonia grandis) is the only begonia that will survive the winter of North Georgia. It grows from a tuber and reaches 2-3 feet tall, with branching red stems carrying large, smooth coppery green leaves with red undersides. Summer flowers are pink or white, borne in drooping clusters.
·Pregnant onion (Ornithogalum caudatum) is grown for its bulb and foliage rather than for the tall wands of small green-and-white flowers. Strap-shaped leaves hang downward and grow to five feet long. The big gray-green, smooth-skinned bulb grows on, not in, the ground. Bulblets form just beneath bulb skin and grow quite large before the bulb splits open and they drop out and root. It also will survive the North Georgia winters, with some protection.
·Night-blooming cereus (Hylocereus undatus) is a tropical pass-along plant. It is grown primarily for its waxy, fragrant white nocturnal flowers, which are up to one foot long.Individual flowers will last just one night, but the plant may bloom all summer.
·Lenten rose (Helleborus orientalis) self-sows freely. We saw both the seedlings and the year-old plants. They grow well in full shade in North Georgia.
·Native elderberry (Sambucus canadensis), like blueberries, needs any two varieties for pollination. It also grows well in North Georgia.
·Butterfly bushes (Buddleia) will tolerate harsh transplanting if the branches of large bushes are cut off and its pruned roots are soaked in water and kept moist. This shrub does well in our region, but needs sun to flower well.
The plant sale was also an educational venue for the GMMG members. In looking at the buying preferences of the customers we found:
·There continually was a crowd of customers around the perennial plant tables who were overheard saying: “I don’t want to have to plant every summer.”
·Plants that were in flower were the first to be sold.Evening primrose, sundrops (Oenothera fruticosa) with their yellow flowers sold very quickly. Those sundrops that had not yet flowered were left to the very end of the sale.
·Tropical (house) plants sold slowly. Again customers were heard saying: “I want to plant it outside and forget about it.”
A plant sale can be merely a money-raising venue. It also has the potential, however, to be so much more. The difference is in the structure of the event.
