HEBER SPRINGS — The Cleburne County Master Gardeners will hold their annual plant sale from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday at the Masters Gardeners’ greenhouse, 725 S. Fourth St., behind the Heber Springs Public Works and Sanitation Department. There is no admission charge.
“People come year to year,” said Darlene O’Connor of Greers Ferry, who has been Plant Sale Committee chairwoman for the past seven years. “They know we are here.
“We will set up tents around the greenhouse. The greenhouse is an old Quonset hut that the city donated to us. The city is really wonderful to us. They pay our electric and water bills.”
The sale — Plants Galore and More — will feature vegetables, flowers, shrubs, trees, succulents, yard art, hanging baskets and more.
O’Connor said the Master Gardeners grow many of the plants from seed in the greenhouse, which they use all year long.
“We have space heaters that we use in the winter,” she said.
“We will have a lot of pass-along plants. People like those,” she said, smiling.
“When I first started working on the plant sale, very few of the plants were homegrown. Now we grow most of them, either here in the greenhouse or in our own yards. We also go to other people’s yards and dig their plants, if we are invited to do so,” O’Connor said.
“Beginning a few months prior to the sale, we start washing and sorting pots, ordering seeds, propagating and planting hundreds of babies,” she said. “These plants spend the first month in our greenhouse incubator/nursery until they are large enough to transplant and the weather is warmer. It takes many hours of watering and growing for them to live in their own pots.
“Then our members start bringing in extra plants from home after thinning or dividing their own gardens.”
In addition to plants for sale, the event will feature the following:
• A papercrete demonstration: Papercrete can be used to make containers.
“It’s green, … light … and can be recycled,” O’Connor said. “We use newspapers, concrete and vermiculite instead of potting soil or with potting soil. We will have kits for sale.”
• A Trash and Treasure tent: “This started out to feature just garden-related items, but now we have anything and everything,” O’Connor said, laughing.
• A straw-bale gardening demonstration: “This is becoming a popular way to garden,” she said. “You plant the plants in a bale of straw, water and fertilize them and watch them grow. When the straw breaks down, it becomes mulch.”
• A tomato tent: “Last year, we had eight varieties of tomatoes for sale,” she said.
O’Connor said the Master Gardeners will also provide sharpening for small tools, free of charge, and bee-keeping information. O’Connor said 10 to 15 members spend three months and approximately 360 hours working, growing, learning and teaching while preparing for the plant sale, which is the group’s only fundraising activity.
“We hope to give a scholarship this year using some of the proceeds from the sale,” she said, adding that the proceeds are also used for beautification and education projects throughout Cleburne County.
Ron O’Connor of Greers Ferry is president of the Cleburne County Master Gardeners.
“We currently have 28 active members,” said Ron O’Connor, who is Darlene O’Connor’s husband. “There are five members with 15-plus years service, and one with over 22 years. That’s a lot of hours of service to the community.
“We currently have eight projects,” he said. “They include the Cleburne County Courthouse, Cleburne County Library, Quitman City Hall, [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers parks, the Greers Ferry Welcome Sign, Junior Master Gardeners (fifth and sixth grades) at Westside School in Greers Ferry, the Master Gardeners greenhouse (the plant sale) and the Cleburne County Fair.”
Ron O’Connor said the Cleburne County Master Gardeners donated a total of 1,761 volunteer hours of service. Other Master Gardener officers include Mary Howard of Edgemont, vice president; Rick Baureis of Heber Springs, secretary; and Robin Creves of Tumbling Shoals, treasurer.
A new Master Gardeners’ training class will begin in November. More information on the class will be available at the plant sale.
The Master Gardeners program is sponsored statewide by the University of Arkansas, Division of Agriculture, Cooperative Extension Service.
For more information, call the Cleburne County Cooperative Extension Service office at (501) 362-2524.