by Chairperson Trish Lyons
It was a dark and stormy night. More than sixty intrepid gardeners braved the rain and traffic to gather at the Tolland Agricultural Center for our Fall Plant Sale and Auction on Friday, September 30th. Sarah Bailey’s Master Gardeners and others in the setup crew quickly got to work putting up the tables and chairs under the masterful direction of Leslie Shields. Food started arriving. Elizabeth Morin and her helpers set out a lovely spread including several yummy homemade treats. Plants were brought in from home gardens and from our nursery and garden center donors. Fairlee Latawic took charge. She and Diane Erling started pricing the items and deciding whether they should go to a sale table or the silent auction table or into the live auction. The new pricing sheets were put up alongside the sale tables. Ginny Gingras hooked up the PA system and we had a working microphone! The auctioneers started arriving, bringing even more plants. The live auction tables were brimming with delightful offerings. Several boxes of CHS library books were rushed in and tables were quickly set up for them. Barb Skomorowski manned the greeters table and welcomed one and all. While it seemed chaotic, everything was coming together.
The plant sale began with volunteers getting first choice, next CHS members got to pick an item from the sale tables and finally everyone had a shot at the plant sale treasures. Next the silent auction winners were announced and then the live auction began. We raised more than $2,200 for the CHS Scholarship Fund on this rainy Friday evening!
Thanks to everyone who helped with the Plant Sale & Auction. It takes many people to pull this event together from getting publicity out, collecting donations from nurseries and garden centers, bringing food and beverages, helping with setup and break down, helping with pricing, recording auction prices, collecting the money, running credit cards, etc. Your help and hard work is greatly appreciated.
We are very pleased to announce that our Spring Plant Sale and Auction will be held once again at Bethany Covenant Church in Berlin on Friday, April 28, 2017. If you would like to help or if you have any comments/suggestions, please email [email protected].
The following nursery/ garden centers generously donated to our auction, please consider patronizing them when doing your garden shopping:
- Bosco’s Garden Center, Simsbury
- Broken Arrow Nursery, Hamden
- Butler Florist and Garden Center, West Hartford
- Cricket Hill Garden, Thomaston
- Earth First Nursery, Trumbull
- E. Draghi and Sons Farms, South Glastonbury
- Garden Barn, Vernon
- Garden Sales, Manchester
- Gotta’s Farm, Portland
- Juknis Farms Greenhouse, Broad Brook
- Natureworks, Northford
- Revay’s Gardens, Broad Brook
- Stonehedge Landscape and Garden Center, Newington
- Twombly Nursery, Monroe
- Winterberry Gardens, Southington
- Woodland Gardens, Manchester
These wonderful wholesalers also contributed plants to our auction:
- Plant Group, North Franklin
- Summer Hill Nursery, Madison
- Many thanks once again to Broken Arrow Nursery and Natureworks for their very generous plant donations and for providing three of our terrific auctioneers: Andy Brand, Nancy DuBrule-Clemente and Kassie Moss. Rounding out the auctioneering crew were the educational and entertaining Maryanne Gryboski and Kevin Wilcox.