Spring is here: Tri-Parish Master Gardeners host Annual Spring Plant Sale

PLAQUEMINE – The Iberville Chapter of the Tri-Parish Master Gardeners hosted their Second Annual Spring Plant Sale Saturday at the greenhouse located on "Mike" Zito Lane behind the LSU Extension Office.

"We do it primarily to raise funds to help with other projects," county agent Miles Brashier said. "We have a community garden we are trying to start up and we work with 4-H programs to help those kids out."

A wide variety of annual and perennial plants were available including begonias, coleus, petunias, spider plants, ferns, daylilies, lantana, verbena and sweet potato vines as well as tomato and other vegetable garden plants including LSU recommended varieties.

"We have a good variety." Brashier said. "Some of that is shrubs but what we mainly concentrate on is mostly annuals."

A tomato plant sale was held earlier in the spring with a Mother's Day Sale planned for May 11 that will include hanging baskets and small gardens made up of nursery quality plants.

"It depends on what they have left," Brashier said.

During the sale, Brashier shared his expertise by answering questions about the many phases of gardening related to landscaping, plant propagation, plant pathology, pesticides and other horticulture questions.

Current programs that have benefited from proceeds include 4-H Youth Development, Junior Master Gardener, a community garden, Habitat for Humanity and donations to the Food Bank along with assisting landscape projects at the library and other public facilities.

The Master Gardener Program consists of taking 15 three-hour sessions on general gardening, landscaping, entomology, pathology, annuals, perennials and many other topics of interest.

These are taught by specialists from the L.S.U. Agriculture Center. For more information or to register for the next series of Master Gardener classes, call Brashier in the Point Coupee office at 225-638-5533.