There is a Master Gardener plant sale in Baker county at the ag center on Rt. 90, April 6 from 9-2. Also other vendors. The Florida Iris Society should be there and hopefully the 4-H and the local high school growers.

Tomorrow's the day. It's high time to go clean out the back of my SUV to make room for any plants that I might find!

Well, it wasn't a huge event. Definitely not the size of the recent Ocala show. But the prices were great. The highest prices they had were $10 and those were mostly the trees. I spent $32 on 10 plants, so roughly $3.20 per plant. Most of the plants they had there had plant fact sheets posted near them so you could get an idea of planting conditions. Though some were a little lacking in this area. The one plant I didn't read a fact sheet on was a pair of Alternanthera ficoidea 'Party Time' plants. Once I got them home and read up on them, it seems they might be a bit too tropical to be planted year-round in my yard, so they might be confined to containers.

Other plants I picked up were some Golden Dewdrops, Blue Firespikes, an African Daisy, some Muhly grass and some orange Bulbine that looks like it could be split into 4 separate plants.

Two things I learned for the next sale, in October, is:
1) Get there early... like when the gates open early. They started selling at 9 and I got there around 10. When I walked in, many tables including an entire selection of Shell Ginger were already sold. Looking at the mass purchases of single plant-types, I got the distinct impression that retailers/landscapers probably bought up things in mass to sell for a profit later.
2) Bring my own wagon. They had plenty of wagons there plus a holding area, but I saw 'families' tying up 2 or 3 wagons to themselves.

The general atmosphere was decidedly different than the Ocala show. Being my second sale, I don't know which is more indicative to plant sales, but the atmosphere at this sale was almost hostile and cut-throat. While walking past one table, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, what's that plant?" Having only a vague idea, I said, "I think it might be dill". To this a older lady standing nearby gave a huff and snapped, "It's fennel" in the most disgusted tone I had heard in a while. Others seemed to have annoyed looks on their faces if you were standing in front of a table of plants that they might be interested in as well. At the very least, its fair to say that people at this show were impatient with browsers.

The Master Gardeners themselves were generally nice and helpful, going out of their way offer their help and insight on plants, a couple even offered to carry my plants to the holding area while I continued browsing. I plan on going to autumn sale in October and next year's spring sale as well, but I'm going to make sure I brush up on my plant identification skills. I would hate to insult someone else by mis-naming a plant.