THE Plant Sale: A 60-Year-Old Tradition
By Karen Kahle, CGC Executive Director
How does the CGC make that first connection with its constituents? That is a question we ask ourselves on a regular basis. The answer, of course, is different for every person. However, there’s one route that we’re pretty sure far exceeds any other: THE Plant Sale. It’s our primary pipeline for new donors, volunteers and people coming back for a class or other event.
Early Roots
THE Plant Sale took root in the early 1960s as an informal exchange of herbs among a few enthusiastic supporters of the Civic Garden Center. The Valley Hills Garden Club often met at the CGC to share, trade and learn about herbs. These small annual meetings blossomed into a full fledged—and soon to be legendary—event.
As early as 1963, this now-yearly market had outgrown our space, and the herb market was held within Hauck Botanic Garden (then known as the Cornelius J. Hauck Garden) with a French twist. Striped awnings covered herb-laden tables, and an herbal May wine was served to complement French foods. Guests preordered herbs by postcard prior to the sale, and guest often left the event with containers of fresh vegetables, home-baked treats and gourmet foods.
The Plant, Herb and Hosta Sale
We’re not exactly sure when it was renamed the Plant, Herb and Hosta Sale, but that remained its moniker until at least 2008. By then it had become a rather legendary event, known for its outstanding selection of plants, knowledgeable experts on hand to answer questions and, of course, that special May wine that people weren’t afraid to ask for as early as ten o’clock in the morning! The event also spanned three days, kicking off with a ticketed preview party on Friday followed by the public sale on Saturday and Sunday. The preview party provided a pretty good hook: attendees got first dibs on all those plants while still sipping wine!
By 2017, the Sunday sale was competing with the wildly popular Flying Pig Marathon. 2018 saw the elimination of the Sunday sale, and the preview party became the Happy Planet Happy Hour for that year and the next—a lower-key gathering that featured event partners promoting how to live more sustainably alongside craft cocktails and great local food.
Through COVID and Beyond
Then the pandemic hit. It’s hard to imagine now just how disruptive and difficult that spring was. We all missed the loud rumble of carts from the Green Learning Station parking lot into Hauck Botanic Garden as hundreds of plant lovers swarmed the different plant booths: eye-catching annuals and perennials, veggies and herbs, and a growing inventory of native plants in a booth named Flying Friends because of their ability to attract birds and insect pollinators.
That first year, we did our best to put on a happy face when we held a virtual Happy Planet Happy Hour with a local mixologist who kindly gave us a tutorial on her favorite COVID cocktail. Staff talked about how we were adapting our programming during the pandemic, and longtime Plant Sale volunteers shared some of their favorite Plant Sale memories from years past.
In 2021, after everyone had grown accustomed during the pandemic to ordering anything and everything on the internet, we bit the e-commerce bullet and began an online sale to go along with a one-day in-person sale. The online sale added a crazy layer of complexity as we worked to build out an e-commerce platform and figure out the logistics of filling hundreds of orders for customer pick-up in the middle of setting up for the in-person sale, too.
But, somehow, we have succeeded. (Honestly, the only way we’ve ever pulled off THE Plant Sale is thanks to hundreds of hours of volunteer support every year!) Now, in 2023, staff and volunteers alike are old hands at this hybrid sale business. And while the online sale has brought hundreds of new shoppers to our plant sale and is a great hedge against bad weather during the live event, it’s hard to imagine ever wanting to silence the sound of those carts on the first Saturday in May. It matters too much to us and to many of you to gather around our shared love of plants and gardening to not carry on the tradition.
Whether this year is your first-ever CGC Plant Sale or you’ve been coming since the May wine days, we’re glad you found your way to the CGC and we’re grateful to share the love of plants and nature with all of you.
See you Saturday. Come early!