It’s Time for the BCMGA Spring Plant Sale!
It is officially spring, and that means it’s time for the Big Country Master Gardener Association Spring Plant Sale!
Last week was a busy, but exciting, time for Master Gardeners as we prepared for this annual event. We have come through days of record-breaking high temperatures, days of low temperatures, and months of extremely dry conditions during the last few years. As a result, many trees, shrubs, and plants that had been weakened by the previous couple of winters were unable to survive the heat and drought. BCMGA will be ready to help with plants that will survive – and thrive – in the Big Country so your landscape will be beautiful and enjoyable again.
All the plants available for the Spring Plant Sale will be advertised online, allowing you to see and learn about the plants, make your selections, and pay for the plants. You can place your order online beginning at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 9th through 12:00 noon on Friday, April 11th. You will be given a time to pick up your order on the afternoon of April 11 between 2:00 and 6:00 at the Modern Living Mall on the Expo Center grounds.
On Saturday, April 12th, we will have an in-person sale from 8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. in the Modern Living Mall – like we have had for years. During the sale on Saturday, you will have the opportunity to shop in person to purchase plants left after the online sale ended.
We will have plants in all categories available for purchase – annuals, perennials, vines, shrubs, succulents, grasses, herbs, vegetables, etc. The plants selected for the sale are cultivars that do well in our hot, dry West Texas climate, but we also looked for plants that survived the freezing temperatures we had in the last few years.
Here are some of the plants we will have:
- Flame Acanthus – Anisacanthus. This is a familiar and hardy perennial; we will have the Dark Orange/Red and Benny’s Gold varieties.
- Daylily – Hemerocallis. These are wonderful additions to the landscape, we will have the Purple D’Oro, Stella D’Oro, and Ruby Stella varieties available for sale.
- Salvias – Salvia greggii, Salvia farinacea, Salvia microphylla, Salvia romeriana, and Salvia nemerosa. There will be several varieties and colors of salvias available to provide you with hardy, easily grown pollinator plants for your landscape.
- Bee Balm – Monarda. These plants add a lot of color to the landscape, and the flowers attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds.
- Yarrow – Achillea. There will be several colors available in this low-maintenance plant. It loves full sun, doesn’t need to be fertilized, and has an extremely low water requirement.
- Turk’s Cap – Malvaviscus. We will have beautiful red Turk’s Cap.
- Jerusalem Sage – Phlomis fruticose. This is a great perennial for our area.
- Lantana – Lantana montevidensis. This is another very hardy plant, and we will have New Gold, Trailing Lavender, and Trailing White varieties.
- Annuals. There will be a variety of annuals to provide lots of color in your landscape during the spring, summer, and into the fall. Some examples are coleus, cosmos, dianthus, geraniums, impatiens, pentas, and vinca.
- Vegetables and Herbs. We will have a variety of vegetable and herb plants ready to be put in your garden.
Please watch the Big Country Master Gardener Association Facebook page for the list of available plants as well as online and in-person sale information. There will also be a link to the Spring Plant Sale on our website at bcmgtx.org. This is a great opportunity to purchase plants that will do well in our area.
The Big Country Master Gardener Association presents free educational programs every month. There is a program at 6:00 p.m. on the 1st Tuesday of the month at the Abilene Public Library South Branch in the Mall of Abilene, and the same program is presented again at 10:00 a.m. on the 2nd Friday of the month at the Abilene Public Library main location. We also have a Master Gardener Saturday Seminar from 9:00 to 12:00 on the last Saturday of the month from February through August in the Taylor County Extension Office Conference Room. The theme for the monthly BCMGA Library and Saturday Seminar presentations in 2025 is “The Year of the Garden.”
We are here to help you. If you have any questions, call the Taylor County Extension Office at 325-672-6048 or email us at bcmgardeners@yahoo.com. We hope you will visit our Facebook page, our website at bcmgtx.org, and the BCMGA YouTube channel for all Big Country Master Gardener information, events, and training.
Until next time… Happy Gardening!
