BCMGA Plant Sale Committee Annual Report 2014
Chair: Kevin Collins
Co-chair: Kathy Clark
2014 Sale Committee Members: Barb Vollmer, Carol Prueitt, Deb Lauer, Judy Shaw, Kathi Tucker,
Jennifer Klammer, Loreen Olufson, Lynn Trimpe, Nellie Oehler, Paula Lupcho, Linda Steppan, Susan
Hoffman, Georgeann Castor
The Plant Sale is the primary fundraiser for BCMGA. The majority of the preparation, organization, publicity, and planning is done by the Committee throughout the year. The set-up and the sale day itself require involvement of much of the membership.
Committee goals:
1. Raise funds to support the other educational activities of BCMGA.
2. Create an environment for positive interaction with the public. Provide education for the public through expert consultation during their shopping and by providing a locale for Clinic
Table interaction.
3. Provide ongoing education for our MGs.
4. Provide education and positive community contact through working with homeowners who allow us into their gardens to dig plants.
Sale preparation and results:
Preparation for the sale is a year-round effort. We solicit plant donations through the Extension newsletters and from our membership. At our Dig and Divide events in October and March , we harvest
(dig) donated plants at 18-20 gardens, divide them, and pot them for storage until the sale. Working with homeowners always results in conveying additional information about their plants and discussing cultivation issues. Most of the digging, dividing, potting, and spring grooming is done by the Committee, with some help from other MGs and spring trainees. We also receive some plant donations from local nurseries in the spring . In 2014, this resulted in more than 5,500 pots of landscape plants for the sale. In addition, we propagate from seed and tend about 2,000 vegetable, herb, and annual starts at the
Philomath HS Forestry greenhouse. Also at the PHS greenhouse, we held a special event in November when we propagated shrubs and herbs from cuttings, many of which grew to salable size by May.
The Plant Sale took place the first Saturday of May at the Benton County Fairgrounds. Set-up began on
Thursday when the Committee put up the signs, tarps for rain/sun protection, and tables, and otherwise arranged for the arrival of the plants. On Friday, a crew of truck drivers and assistants transported the plants from storage locations to the Fairgrounds. MGs, including many trainees, used wheelbarrows to deliver the plants to their appropriate area (sun perennials, vegetables, natives, etc.). Each plant area had experts to arrange the plants for display and sale. Friday night, a local Boy Scout troop “camped out” to provide security for the venue.

Saturday morning there were nearly a hundred shoppers in line when we opened. The experts in each area helped shoppers make plant choices appropriate to their planting environments and preferences. A
Clinic Table crew also answered questions. A holding area allowed shoppers to store their selections while they continued to shop. The half-price sale starting at 1:00 was nearly as busy as the opening morning hours. By the end of the day, 923 people came through the entrance, with some duplication by people who may have shopped in the morning and also came back for the afternoon sale This total represented an increase of about 123 people over the 2013 sale. After expenses, the profit from the sale totaled $14,252.44.
At the end of the sale, left-over plants were donated. BCMGA projects such as Central Park, Seeds to
Supper, and school gardens took plants that they could use. Those MGs who worked through the day at the sale also chose a few plants. This year, Linn County Master Gardeners requested some plants to be donated for a public education event. The remaining plants are donated to Habitat for Humanity.
Public education is a big part of the sale. In addition to the Clinic Table contacts (reported elsewhere), the area experts interact with the shoppers, answering questions and providing cultivation information.
Area experts keep contact data, though the counts are likely underreported since most experts admitted that the first hours were so intensely busy that they didn’t record all their contacts. Nonetheless, the reported contacts are considerable, totaling 739 (for 923 attendees, though some shoppers no doubt talked with experts in more than one area).
Ongoing education for our own MGs is also a priority. Dig and Divide events in October and March are valuable times for learning dividing techniques specific to particular plants. Plant identification and characteristics are discussed; almost all participants at each event learn about plants previously unknown to them. In particular, the March digging and dividing events are important hands-on education for the trainee class (more of them should attend!). The seeding and propagation events at the greenhouse are also important educational opportunities.
Innovations:
1. Using a computerized labeling system (acquired through a 2013 special allocation) has required us to develop a database for recording the plants harvested and propagated. This database has allowed for better planning. The database includes the plant’s scientific name, common name, flower color, mature size, cultivation needs, and key features (such as being drought or deer tolerant). This database has allowed for three improvements to our process. First, in combination with the label printer, we have been able to include more information about each plant on the plant tag, providing better information for our shoppers. Second, printing the labels is much less labor-intensive than handwriting each tag.
Finally, the database provides us with a plant inventory, which when combined with the post-sale inventory performed by each area expert, has allowed us to know specifically what plants sell well and which plants are not as attractive to the public. This allows us to focus our digging and propagation efforts on those plants most likely to sell. We know that we sold more than 95% of the tomatoes, annual herbs, vegetables, and vines. We sold more than 80% of the shade and sun perennials but fewer than
60% of the groundcovers. We began this data collection process in 2013, so we can now begin to

compare data. In 2013, 23.5% of plants were unsold at the end of the sale, whereas in 2014, 21% of the plants were unsold. While the percent difference may not seem significant, this means a difference of more than 250 plants, representing an significant investment of work and expense. Of course, each year the donations differ somewhat, and though two years of data does not yet indicate consistent trends, the data does suggest some actions that may prove beneficial. For example, we had many unsold daylilies in 2013 (54%). In 2014, we were more selective in choosing which daylilies we dug, requiring that the flower color be known and minimizing the number of orange- and yellow-flowering plants in the sale. In 2014, the unsold percentage was reduced to 24%. We also need to consider whether improvements to display would lessen the differences among the different plant groups.
2. In November, Kathi Tucker led a workshop at the PHS greenhouse on propagation techniques for hardwood and softwood cuttings. She introduced forsythe pots as an easy method of keeping the soil evenly moist for the cuttings. Participants brought plant cuttings from their gardens--hardy fuschias, euonymus, ribes, etc. About 12 MGs participated, including some trainees. Most of the plants successfully rooted and many ended up in the Plant Sale.
3. An enhancement to the Dig and Divide events was the inclusion of “MG, you dig it; we pot it” days. On these days, MGs would bring plants from their own gardens to be divided and potted for the sale. This solved two problems from past years. First, it ensured that the plants donated by MGs could be entered into the inventory prior to the sale, eliminating a bottleneck when loads of plants would arrive on the
Friday before the sale, all needing to be groomed, priced and labeled at the last minute. Second, MGs delivering plants often stayed to help pot their donations, increasing the number of MGs involved in sale preparations.