The Grant County Master Gardeners will offer a spring workshop and plant sale at 9 a.m. Saturday in the greenhouses at 600 Grant County Road 83. The public is invited; there is no admission charge.
Janet Carson, horticulture specialist with the Cooperative Extension Service, University of Arkansas System, Division of Agriculture, will be the guest speaker. She will speak at 9:15; her topic will be Welcome Spring.
Following a break for light refreshments and door prizes, Howard Semey, chief entomologist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s regional laboratory in Jefferson, will speak on Common Garden Pests.
The plant sale is scheduled to open at 11 a.m. The sale will include flowers, tomatoes, squash, peppers, ornamentals, grasses, seeds, garden tools and more.
Master Gardeners have been busy growing plants from seed in what they refer to as “the grow room.”
“We start our plants here,” said Mike Watson, who is a member of the Plant Sale Committee and the husband of Nancy Watson, president of the local Master Gardeners group. “We started these plants about two months ago. By the time of the sale, they will be ready to go to the garden. We will have plants that are the common garden vegetables and flowers.
“Then on the day of the sale, Master Gardeners will bring plants from their own gardens. Nancy has 36 rose bushes that she plans to bring. I have some black bamboo that I acquired about 20 years ago from a botanical garden in Louisiana that has been growing ever since.”
Nancy Watson said prices for the plants are really reasonable, “from about 25 cents to $5 for a fig twig,” she said, laughing, as she pointed to some fig-tree saplings she is growing.
“We use the proceeds for our projects,” she said. Master Gardener projects include planting and maintaining flower beds at the Grant County Courthouse, the Grant County Cooperative Extension Service office, the Sheridan Chamber of Commerce office and Sheridan elementary and intermediate schools. The group also funds scholarships.
Mike Watson said they will have a lot of seed that has been donated, as well as garden chemicals.
“That will all be for sale at 75 percent off retail prices,” he said.
In addition to Nancy Watson as president, other officers of the Grant County Master Gardeners are Charles Brooks, vice president, and Susan Schultz, secretary.
Brad McGinley, chairman of the Grant County Cooperative Extension Service, serves as adviser to the Master Gardeners.
“Our Master Gardeners are doing some great things in our community,” McGinley said. “This workshop and plant sale are going to be an opportunity to get some great information and some great plants.”
For more information, call the Grant County Cooperative Extension Service office at (870) 942-2231.