Master Gardeners schedule plant sale for Saturday
BENTON — The Saline County Master Gardeners are ready for Saturday’s annual plant sale. They will open the doors of the commercial building at the Saline County Fairgrounds at 8 a.m. and will stay open until noon or until there are no more plants to sell.
The community is invited, and there is no admission charge.
“What always stands out to me is that we see the same people from the community year after year who come here and enjoy the plants we have for sale,” said Julie Kerr, this year’s plant-sale committee chairwoman, who lives near the Congo community. “As Master Gardeners, we like to share the plants that we like to grow.”
Kerr, who has been a Master Gardener for nine years, said she volunteered to serve as this year’s committee chairwoman. She is also treasurer of the Saline County Master Gardeners.
“We set up on Friday and stay as long as it takes to get everything ready when we open the door on Saturday morning,” said Kerr, who works in Little Rock. “We ask each Master Gardener to contribute 50 plants to the sale. We ask that they keep them at their homes, put them in clean pots, label them and price them prior to the sale. We have people in each vicinity of the county who are available to help others if they have questions or concerns.”
A group of the local gardeners met recently at the greenhouse of Sherry Faulkner in Benton to repot
plants and organize the plants that were being stored in her greenhouse. Prior to that, the Master Gardeners had been busy growing plants from seeds, as well as collecting many more from the gardens of fellow members in order to have a wide selection of plants for the sale.
“We will have a good variety of plants, especially native plants and butterfly plants, as well as vegetables and herbs,” said Sandy Rial of Haskell. “We will also have hanging baskets and garden containers. We will have all sizes, priced from 50 cents and up.”
Sandy Morris of Avilla said the plants “are all from Master Gardeners’ yards.
“We all have planted multiples and want to thin out our yards and get more plants,” Morris said, laughing. “We plant things that we know will grow easily in our area.”
Horticulture vendors are scheduled to be at the sale as well.
Kerr said proceeds from the sale will fund scholarships for college students who are studying horticulture and for Master Gardener projects.
“The scholarship is for $500 a semester and is renewable each semester,” she said. “We have given a scholarship to a high school senior before but have had trouble getting high school seniors to apply; often high school seniors don’t know yet what their major in college will be. We have given as many as two or three scholarships a year. … It just depends on how many applicants we get.”
Several members of the 2017 Master Gardeners class were also invited to work at Faulkner’s greenhouse. Among them were Holly Davis and Jane Willis, both of Benton, and Cheryl Bowie of Bryant.
“I’m retired,” Davis said. “My friend Jane invited me to get involved. I like to raise ornamental plants.
“I think this plant sale benefits the community. I have loved plants since I was a little girl. I always wanted to be a Master Gardener.
“This will be the first time I have been to the plant sale. “I’ll be working this one. Jane has been before.”
Carmen Sanders of Benton, who joined the Master Gardeners in 2016, was also working at Faulkner’s greenhouse.
“I’m learning a lot,” Sanders said. “I am always asking questions. I am having fun, too. This group does a lot of things together.”
The Saline County Master Gardeners “are 83 members strong,” said Ron Matlock, county agent for agriculture and staff chairman of the Saline County Cooperative Extension Service, a division of the University of Arkansas System. Matlock is also the adviser to the Master Gardeners.
“They returned 5,341 hours of service work through community-beautification and service projects,” Matlock said. “They have 23 sanctioned projects that they can work on.”
Bruce Schrader of the Salem community is president of the Saline County Master Gardeners. He is a retired educator and project leader of the Avilla Community Gardens. Phil McConnell of Bryant is vice president of the local Master Gardeners. He is retired from the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department and is the leader for the Benton Chamber of Commerce landscape project. Kathy Lewallen of Bryant is secretary of the Saline County Master Gardeners and is the leader of the flower-beds project at the Mabel Boswell Memorial Library in Bryant. The Master Gardeners program is an all-volunteer program.
The 40-hour training program is offered statewide by the University of Arkansas, Cooperative Extension Service, in 67 counties in Arkansas. Following the training, participants are required to volunteer at least 40 hours to the program and to accumulate at least 20 hours of learning within the next year. To maintain the status of Master Gardener thereafter, individuals must provide 20 “working” or service hours and accrue 20 “learning” or education hours per year.
For more information on the Saline County Master Gardeners program, call the Saline County Extension Service office at (501) 303-5672.