Rolling the Dice at the Dunbar Plant Sale

The lineup began early at the 37th and Highbury venue for the Dunbar Garden Club’s annual plant sale on April 26.

By Carol Volkart

What could be better than a sunny morning in early spring, a blossom-lined street in south Dunbar, and a carport full of lush greenery to be plundered?

We’re talking the Dunbar Garden Cub’s annual spring plant sale, where local gardeners still in the throes of early-season optimism line up to snaffle what they hope will be winning additions to their own gardens.

Customers crowd the narrow aisle of the carport where the sale is held.

This year’s was Saturday, April 26, and I was among the early birds there before the 10 a.m. starting gun. When it went off, we filed eagerly (but politely, because this is Dunbar, after all) into the carport-cum-garden-centre. On both sides of its narrow U-shaped aisle were tables of plants and more plants, a forest of luscious greenery.

Most were contributed by the club’s 115 members, who’ve raised them from seed, propagated them, or dug them out of their own gardens — hence the low price tags. The sale is the club’s gift to the community, with a generous portion of the proceeds going to the BC Council of Gardening Clubs Horticulture Scholarships.

It’s a festive event, with an undercurrent of excitement about the start of a new gardening year. Neighbours greet neighbours, strangers begin conversations about plants known and unknown, and helpful club members – like clothing-shop clerks offering to start you a changing room – will obligingly haul your selections to a keeping area while you keep shopping.

I’m the one in the hat, chatting to my friend Brian Palmquist as we survey the offerings.

Choosing plants is a serious business for these customers.

Oh, what choices! What a lot of plants you’ve never heard of! “What’s this?” is the most common phrase in the room, and the cryptic plant labels can be as mysterious as the plants themselves. That’s part of the fun, though, for some of us who see gardening as a craps-game kind of exercise.

We watch the “real” gardeners – people who actually know what they’re doing — with a kind of awe. Most impressive to me was the man ahead of me in the lineup who headed straight for a couple of bushy plants – no question or hesitation there – picked them up, headed for the cashier’s desk, and vanished. What did I miss? Fortunately, I’ll never know.

So what did I end up with? Four ferns – at least I know what they look like – for a newly bare spot in a corner of my shady garden. A few old familiar garden regulars – a well-begun peony, a flourishing dahlia, a possibly interesting columbine, and a coleus of beautiful green-and-silver leaves.

Here I am, emerging from the fray with some of my picks. I made two rounds of the aisle.

But what’s a Paris when it’s at home? I snatched up two because they looked so interesting. A later Internet search showed that my roll of the dice was a winner. The Herb Paris or True Lover’s Knot is a species of flowering plant that according to the Seattle Times is an “irresistibly cool” relative of the trillium. Not only that, but it thrives in damp and shady places, so it fits like a glove into my treed back yard.

Paris, aka True Lover’s Knot, got rave reviews on the Internet.

Then there’s a Hacquetia, which an online search says is a clump-forming perennial that produces unusual green, yellow-eyed bracts from late winter to early spring and is a bee-favourite. It likes partial to full shade, so once again, in total ignorance, I lucked out.

And – I had a bit of advice on this one – I bought an Epimedium, which I was told thrives in shade and even miserable soil, which kind of describes my garden. Thanks again to the Internet, I now know it’s also called barrenwort, bishop’s hat, fairy wings, or horny goat weed. Hah! A winner for its names alone.

My level of gardening expertise means there’s a good chance my experiments may not survive the summer ahead. But my, what fun being set loose in a carport full of plants in early spring, when the sun is shining and hope is high! See you next year at the Dunbar Garden Club’s plant sale!

A fun time at the sale — and isn’t that what it should all be about?