Gardeners, Start Your Shovels, The Plant Sale Season Has Begun!

After a long hiatus, the sun made an appearance last weekend dragging gardeners out of hibernation.  We emerged squinting, mole like, at the bright orb in the sky.  What was that color up there?  Definitely not another shade of gray. If memory serves, it's called blue.  The first plant sale of the season, a benefit for the Elizabeth Miller Horticulture Library, was hosted by the Northwest Horticultural Society at the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle and recently revived gardeners
arrived in droves to peruse the offerings of many specialty growers.

 It's a treat to see the gardens here in any season. 

Moss and lichen love our soggy winters.

There were even some non-gardeners enjoying the day.

Can anyone identify this huge Yucca?  The consensus of those asked was that it's far too large to be Y. rostrata

On to the sale!

 There were vendors filling a couple of large spaces and some overflowing outside.  It seemed as if the attendees outnumbered the plants, and believe me, there were lots of plants. 

Ypsilandra thibetica in fragrant bloom.

Labeled Schefflera taiwaniana, this one, a Dan Hinkley selection, has especially narrow leaves and may have hitched a ride back to Tacoma.

 Wollmia nobilis casually hanging out in this contemporary setting.  It still amazes me to see this tree which has been around since the Mezoic era.  Yup, dinosaurs also laid eyes on these trees which were, until 1994, thought to only exist in fossil records. See more here.

Helleborus 'Golden Sunrise.'   

I would have taken more pictures of plants but the sale was crowded with passionate plant people, arms laden with boxes of plants.  Attendees were in a jovial mood and wagon after wagon filled with all manner of growing treasures rolled out to the parking areas.  A clever plant cart.

 It was fun to run into some familiar passionate plant people.  Say, is that artist Kim McCarthy aka Urbansoule pulling a cart overflowing with foliage?

Out back there was a demonstration of how raised beds should look

and how my raised beds, if I had them, would look this time of year.  

This coming weekend is the Northwest Perennial Society "March Mania" sale at the Bellevue Botanical Garden and the weather is supposed to be equally delightful.  Will I see you there?