The Marion Garden Group is hosting its annual Plant Sale on Saturday, May 13 in the park across from the Art Center. Members have been digging, dividing, and repotting a good selection of beautiful perennial plants, herbs and shrubs that have thrived in local gardens and are offered for sale to the community at reasonable prices ranging from $3 to $10.
“We have a sure supply of hardy and well-established plants,” reports Liz Hatch, who is chairing the event, now in its second year. Strawberries, hundred-year-old day lilies, lilacs, and daisies from members’ seaside estates and village gardens are being prepared for sale. “The plants,” she maintains, “will provide years of continued enjoyment. They have been proven to thrive in our coastal climate and sandy soil.”
A partial plant list catalogs the following varieties: Sedum, Salvia, Stella D’oro Lilies, Coreopsis, Vinca, Shasta Daisy, Montauk Daisy, Heather, Siberian Iris, White Lilac, Hydrangea, Yucca, Spirea, Orange Day Lilies, Hosta, Bleeding Heart, Purple Iris, Columbine (white and pink), Liriope, Strawberry, Lemon Balm, Clematis, Sorrel, Phlox, Bearded Iris, Bee Balm, White Peony, Rudbeckia, Pulmonaria, White and Pink Lily of the Valley, Blue Siberian Iris, Peppermint, Chives, Pachysandra, Oregano, Penstemon, Baptisia, Astilbe, Autumn Clematis, Catmint, and Fennel.
The group’s inaugural efforts were well received by the community last year. “We sold out of everything we had,” says the garden group’s president, Cassy West. This year, the club hopes to feature double the amount of plants and lots of new varieties. In addition, members are creating colorful photographic signs to help with identification and to provide planting guidelines and plant descriptions. “There will be an educational component to the sale as well,” says Ms. Hatch. “Come and learn about bees and the great threat to our pollinator populations,” she says. Local honey harvested from Garden Group members’ hives will be offered for sale, as well as bees wax candles.
Sippican School will also offer plants that students have grown themselves from seeds. In addition to all the natural plant material for sale, there will be garden crafts, topiaries, house plants, and more. All proceeds from the Marion Garden Group sale benefit the town.
The Marion Garden Group plants and maintains the window boxes and planters throughout the village, collaborates with the Sippican Lands Trust to fund the planting of bulbs in public spaces, supports the Sippican School Garden by helping to fund the school’s greenhouse, conducts flower arranging classes at area nursing homes, promotes pollinator initiatives, including the management of local beehives, and is working to establish a seed library at the Elizabeth Taber Library and to enhance the town’s reference book collection.
The nonprofit organization welcomes donations to help support its mission. Contact them at Marion Garden Group, P.O. Box 403, Marion, MA 02738 or visit their website at www.mariongardengroup.org.