With a dollar to spend on a plant for Mother’s Day, young Lucas Wehmeyer narrowed his choices on Saturday to a tray full of potted yellow marigolds roughly as far along in plant age as he is in human years.
“Which one?” asked Lebanon resident Paula LaPlant, one of two certified Vermont master gardeners manning the Windsor County Extension’s sale table at the Hartford solid waste and recycling transfer center.
“This one,” Lucas said, pointing to the frail stem to his left.
Meanwhile, Lucas’ sister Kate and brother Caleb continued to examine their options while mom Meggan Wehmeyer beamed at her kids.
“They enjoy gardening, too,” Wehmeyer said. “They’re good helpers.”
Devotees of the horticultural arts — and their children, grandchildren and spouses — found plenty to choose from at plant sales around the Upper Valley on Saturday.
Within maybe 10 minutes of the opening of the annual Mother’s Day sale on the front lawn of the Norwich Public Library, Karen Burgess was carrying a trayful of potted young flowers, while her son Ben toted a hanging plant in each hand as they walked down the street to their house, where four raised beds awaited.
“I like supporting the library and I love getting my hands dirty,” Burgess said. “It is my Mother’s Day present to myself. This isn’t labor, this is joy.”
Judging by past Mother’s Day plant sales in Norwich, volunteers from the Friends of Norwich Public Library will collect between $2,500 and $3,000 in support for the library from wielders of green thumbs and their loved ones by the end of the sale this afternoon at 2.
“We have people who come back year after year,” said volunteer Sandy McCormick, a member of the Friends since 1991. “Some of them are out here first thing in the morning before we even open at 10. The weather doesn’t seem to matter: Gardeners come out in the rain and snow.”
Gardeners’ less zealous partners, spouses, kids and grandkids often straggle in on Sunday mornings before or after church, McCormick added “after they realize they haven’t gotten any thing for Mother’s Day, yet.
“We consider it the No. 1 guilt holiday,” she said.
While the Norwich sale focuses on annuals, perennials and other flowers donated by Killdeer Farm founders Jake and Liz, the Windsor County Extension master gardeners offer advice on how, where and when to plant the flowers and vegetables they sell in Hartford and elsewhere; at the 2017 sale in Hartford, they harvested about $500.
“If you like herbs, go down to the Hartland Library,” Plainfield resident Cindy Heath told Kate Wehmeyer. “They’ve got a person there with a lot of expertise in them.”
Heath, the former director of parks and recreation in Lebanon, said started developing her skills after retiring in 2011.
“It was the first thing I wanted to do,” Heath said.
LaPlant took the certification course in master gardening in 2007.
“I was mostly a vegetables person at first, because I like to eat them,” she said. “Now I’m getting more into flowers.”
As long as she’s getting her hands into the soil, the way she learned from her father, Karen Burgess is happy with whatever she’s planting.
This year’s acquisitions include double impatiens and petunias.
“I spend a lot of time traveling to and from work, so this is therapy, like yoga,” said Burgess, who directs parent giving and relations at a private school in Concord. “This is just fun.”
The Mother’s Day plant sale benefiting the Norwich Public Library continues on the library’s front lawn today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
David Corriveau can be reached at dcorriveau@vnews.com and at 603-727-3304