Hundreds of local gardeners and plant enthusiasts flocked to Saturday’s annual Edmonds Floretum Garden Club plant sale for a chance to snag some beautiful, rare and crazy low-priced additions to their home gardens.

“We’ve been doing this since the mid-1930s,” explained Floretum President Inae Piercy. “It started out as a plant exchange for club members where we’d bring plants and cuttings from our own gardens to share with each other. But it soon evolved into a community plant sale, where everyone could join in.

“But it’s still a sharing kind of event,” she continued. “All the plants are from members’ gardens. Many are from cuttings, or from plants that have grown too large and needed to be separated. It’s part of how we share our joy of gardening with the rest of the community.”

And the event continues to evolve. New this year is a special kids zone, with garden-related activities for the younger set, and an expanded garden boutique with everything from tools to sculpture to décor.

Floretum members start preparing for the plant sale months in advance, digging out overgrown and extraneous plants and potting them in preparation for the big sale. With a selection spanning shade-tolerant groundcovers to tomato and pepper plants to woody landscape material, there’s always something for everyone with a bit of unplanted space in their home gardens.

An Edmonds institution, 2022 marks Floretum’s 100th anniversary of fulfilling its mission to bring floral beauty to Edmonds. A special exhibit at the Edmonds Historical Museum celebrates this milestone with a retrospective of the club. And Floretum continues to grow, a living testament to the special bond between humans and their gardens.

“Over the past three years we’ve added more than 70 new members,” explained Piercy.  “I’m sure COVID keeping people close to home and hence close to their gardens could have been part of this, but we’ve also been more visible in the community with our regular lectures and presentations on garden-related topics.”

The Floretum monthly programs cover topics that include composting, making the most of a small garden space and raised bed vegetable gardening.  If you miss them in person, all are available to stream from the Floretum website.

“The plant sale is our major fundraiser of the year,” Piercy added.  “Last year we raised $5.000, and even though this morning’s rain kept some folks from being here when we opened, we’re hoping to match that amount again this year.”

Learn more at the Floretum Garden Club website.

— Story and photos by Larry Vogel