Our Annual Perennial Plant Sale occurs every May, usually the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  In 2004 there were 400 customers waiting to get in at our 8:30 a.m. opening time.  Some of them had arrived at 5:00 that morning to be near the front of the line.  One customer told us she couldn’t sleep the night before our plant sale—it was better than the night before Christmas—anticipating all the beautiful plants she would be able to get for her garden.

Some of us look forward to this all year long, and begin our preparations six months before we sell the first plant. Without being involved in this themselves, nobody could imagine how great the experience is when we get together to plan the event and begin the work.  More than half of our members help work at the sale. We don’t want to go home afterwards; we don’t want it to be over. The sale becomes a learning experience for everybody. Boy Scouts help us sometimes to earn points toward badges, as well as students working for community service credit.

You might imagine that it would be impossible to actually sell almost 5,000-10,000 plants at a single day’s sale, but people start to camp out by the front gate at 4 o’clock in the morning in order to be the first through the door for the 8:30 a.m. opening.

You would have to see the event to comprehend how spectacular it is. More than 200 people might be waiting impatiently by the time the sale starts. We open the gate and have to make a jump to get out of the way. People pour through the gate like a herd of cattle. The stampede reminds me of drawings in history books of the Oklahoma Land Rush. Those people are on a mission.

Everything about our sale is conducted with great good humor. When you buy plants as inexpensively as we sell them, you can buy a lot of them and really enjoy the experience. People sometimes bring wagons and wheelbarrows to haul the plants to their cars. Some of them will take home 100 plants, stick them into the ground, and come right back for another load.