Marcia, You may want to contact the Here is a link that might be useful: Lauderdale County Extension Office

Well, it wasn't a huge event. Definitely not the size of the recent Ocala show. But the prices were great. The highest prices they had were $10 and those were mostly the trees. I spent $32 on 10 plants, so roughly $3.20 per plant. Most of the plants they had there had plant fact sheets posted near them so you could get an idea of planting conditions. Though some were a little lacking in this area. The one plant I didn't read a fact sheet on was a pair of Alternanthera ficoidea 'Party Time' plants. Once I got them home and read up on them, it seems they might be a bit too tropical to be planted year-round in my yard, so they might be confined to containers. Other plants I picked up were some Golden Dewdrops, Blue Firespikes, an African Daisy, some Muhly grass and some orange Bulbine that looks like it could be split into 4 separate plants. Two things I learned for the next sale, in October, is: 1) Get there early... like when the gates open early. They started selling at 9 and I got there around 10. When I walked in, many tables including an entire selection of Shell Ginger were already sold. Looking at the mass purchases of single plant-types, I got the distinct impression that retailers/landscapers probably bought up things in mass to sell for a profit later. 2) Bring my own wagon. They had plenty of wagons there plus a holding area, but I saw 'families' tying up 2 or 3 wagons to themselves. The general atmosphere was decidedly different than the Ocala show. Being my second sale, I don't know which is more indicative to plant sales, but the atmosphere at this sale was almost hostile and cut-throat. While walking past one table, my daughter asked me, "Daddy, what's that plant?" Having only a vague idea, I said, "I think it might be dill". To this a older lady standing nearby gave a huff and snapped, "It's fennel" in the most disgusted tone I had heard in a while. Others seemed to have annoyed looks on their faces if you were standing in front of a table of plants that they might be interested in as well. At the very least, its fair to say that people at this show were impatient with browsers. The Master Gardeners themselves were generally nice and helpful, going out of their way offer their help and insight on plants, a couple even offered to carry my plants to the holding area while I continued browsing. I plan on going to autumn sale in October and next year's spring sale as well, but I'm going to make sure I brush up on my plant identification skills. I would hate to insult someone else by mis-naming a plant.

What kind of plants...all kind & prices can't be beat. There will not be any strawberry plants tho. We are hoping to have blueberries but I'm not sure. Come early because the choice plants go fast. There will be some unusual stuff but sometimes only one or two of each.

Who went to the plant sale? I got there a little after 7 and had a lot of people ahead of me in line. There were still tons of plants to look through. I'm not sure it would help to get there earlier unless I could block the entrance after I got in until I had a chance to read all the plant tags. lol I got a geranium Johnson's Blue, monarda 'Rasberry Wine' and a haworthia pearl plant. I need to read up on that last one. I assume it's a houseplant. I'll post a pic below from the web that looks similar. I wonder if it would be happier outside in the summer. Violet - I guess it's a good thing that all the woodland phlox was gone when I got to the shade section. I came home and started cleaning out my old pre-icestorm shade bed and found quite a bit of woodland phlox growing down in the weeds. It just wasn't blooming there because it was being choked out. I dug up several little starts. It was hard to get the roots but I think they'll do ok if I pot them up for awhile. Question Violet - When the Master Gardener's have their meetings to pot up plants before the sale, what do they use for potting soil? Is there a way to get that stuff in bulk or do they just use compost? Here is a link that might be useful: