As of February 1, our online sign-up system is live and ready for volunteers to sign up. To give it a try, go to volunteer.friendsschoolplantsale.com. You’ll be asked for your name, email, phone and address, and then you’ll be able to pick a shift, after reading the brief job description to make sure it’s what you were expecting.

If you’ve volunteered before, just give it your name and phone number, and assuming it matches the way you typed it in the past, the system will know who you are. Be sure to update your address if needed!

Volunteers are welcome to shop early, at our Thursday evening pre-sale (May 6 from 7:00 - 10:00 p.m.).

New this year: If you volunteer before the pre-sale, you’ll be getting your postcard for pre-sale admission after you’ve volunteered. Only volunteers who work after the pre-sale will receive their postcards by mail.

We would love your feedback on the system. Please send it (or any questions about volunteering) to signup@friendsschoolplantsale.com

Do you have tips for your fellow shoppers (especially first or second-time shoppers) about how you do the sale? Let us know, and we will post it to the website.

Do you have a great cart you bring to the sale with special compartments or a built-in stool so you can take a break? Maybe with a jet engine attached to help you get back to your car? Send us a picture!

Send your tips to: info@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

Send your photos to: photos@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

Did you know we’ve long had gift certificates for the Friends School Plant Sale? But we didn’t have an easy way to sell them… you had to send a check to the school.

Now you can buy certificates through the school’s secure website in the following amounts: $25, $40, $50, $75 and $100.

The school office will receive your request and send a certificate to your address or directly to the address of anyone you want to honor with a gift.

EVERYTHING is half price. There are lots and lots of great plants left for you to buy at the half-price sale! Remember to record the FULL price on your shopping form and leave the arithmetic to the check-out volunteers with their adding machines.

Doors open at noon, wristbands are given out at 10:00AM, and there will surely be a line to get those wristbands before 10:00AM. Remember the shopping carts are in short supply, so bring your own wagon WITH YOUR NAME ON IT.

We are also running very short of cardboard flats to carry plants, so if you possibly can, bring your own flats for carrying.

There are several dozen of most of these plants:

Perennials

Astilbe (e.g. Fanal Red P 032)
Asters (e.g. Dream of Beauty P 016)
Anemone, Fall (e.g Annabella Deep Pink P 003)
Beardtongue (e.g. Scarlet Queen P 056)
Balloon Flower (e.g. Fuji Pink P 046)
Bellflower (e.g. Octopus P 088)
Bee Balm (e.g. Garden View Scarlet P 070)
Butterfly Weed (e.g. P 133)
Hardy Cactus (e.g. Prickly Pear P 142)
Columbine (e.g. Songbird P 181)
Cranesbill (e.g. Johnson’s Blue )
Foxgloves (e.g. Camelot Lavender P 306)
Iris (e.g. LOTS of Louisiana Black Gamecock  P 427)
Hosta (e.g. Diamond Tiara P 369)
Hollyhocks (e.g. Peaches n Dreams P 355)
Ligularia (e.g. Rocket P 462)
Lamb’s Ear (e.g. Helene von Stein P 448)
Mums (e.g. Stardust P 511)
Monkshood (e.g. Sparks Variety P 498)
Phlox (e.g. Appleblossom P 547)
Blue Poppies P 580 including a larger size that may bloom this year
Creeping Raspberry P 601
Stonecrop (e.g. Lemon Coral P 688)
Thyme (e.g. Mother of Thyme P 698)

For the first time in a long while, we have significant numbers of water plants left.

Annuals

Alyssum A 006

Begonia (e.g. Escargot A 043)
Flowering Cabbage (e.g. Peacock Red A 072)
Coleus (e.g. Trailing Queen A 140)
Hummingbird Mint (e.g. Acapulco Rose A 251)
Tropical Hibiscus A 652A
Brush Cherry Topiaries A 641
Impatiens (e.g. Extreme White A 264)
Star Jasmine A 653 — lots!
Johnny Jump-Ups A 306
Lisianthus (Mariachi Pink A 328)
Petunias
Phormium Tom Thumb A 649
Spikes — lots! in different colors
Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana) (e.g. Babybella A 534)
Verbena (e.g. Peaches & Cream A 558)
Zinnia (e.g. Magellan Coral A 586)
Indoor/Outdoor Succulents (e.g. Echeveria Von Pearl A 669)
Clivia A 645
Banana Siam Ruby A 638

Vegetables

Large numbers heirloom tomatoes
Seeds for beans, beets and corn
A good range of other vegetables

Herbs

Lots of basil!
Significant amounts of lavender
Smaller amounts of most of the rest of the herb list

Bulbs and Bareroots

While there were some sellouts among lilies and daylilies, there are substantial numbers left of many.

Climbing Plants

No Malabar Spinach — but a smattering of other annual vines.
Quite a number of various clematis
Perennial vines are also available in pretty significant quantities (no hops, though — they were a crop failure)

Fruit

If you’re looking to plant for food, there’s a lot at the sale for you:

All three kinds of apples are left
Hundreds of blueberries, due to their late arrival on Friday
Cranberries! both kinds
Honeyberry ‘Berry Blue’ — unfortunately, the other variety was a crop failure but plant one now so it can grow for a year and be ready when you get another variety next year
Lingonberries
Peaches
Lots of strawberries — Fragoo Pink, Honeoye, Ozark Beauty and Alpine

Shrubs and Trees

No azaleas or rhododendrons… no bamboo but most other items are still available.
In the shrubs in small pots, there are very significant numbers of the two Sunjoy Gold Barberries.
A lot of beautiful trees (not many magnolias) but there are still Japanese maples, redbuds, tamaracks and both kinds of Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick.

Roses

A nice selection, including large numbers of the cute little Miniature Angel Wings among others.

Native Wild Flowers

A broad range from the list.

The wristbands will start to be handed out starting at 8 a.m. on Friday morning.

Sunday wristbands will be handed out starting at 10 a.m.

We always put a little note by the map of the sale published in the catalog that says “Plant locations are subject to change.” This is one of those times.

Due to the increase in the number of vegetables at this year’s sale, we’ve run out of space indoors for the Grass section, so it will be located in the fenced-in area along the front of the Grandstand, at the very eastern end of the fence (right outside the eastern door to the fenced in area).

It will be right across the way from the the Native Wild Flowers.

Hey, if you’ve been wondering where the shopping list form is — Here it is! (pdf, 12K) (It’s also linked at the top of the Doing the Sale page.)

The 2009 catalog is now available on the website in the Catalog section.

It’s also at the printer, and due to deliver to the school on Friday, March 27. For those of you already on our mailing list, we hope to have them in the mail by Monday, March 30. If you’re not already on the list, you can request a copy by sending your name and address to frontoffice@fsmn.org. Catalogs will also be available at many libraries, coffeeshops and food co-ops around the Twin Cities.

In the meantime, check out the PDF version… it’s 60 pages, and includes updated articles on What’s New at the Sale and How to Do the Sale — plus a tiny bit of Plant Sale history, since it’s our 20th annual sale, an introduction to permaculture principles, and seven pages of color plant photos. We hope you like the color photos; let us know if they were helpful in your planning or not.

Happy reading! As always, you can send your comments to us through the website by commenting, or by emailing us at info@friendsschoolplantsale.com.

1. One-stop shopping. Annuals and perennials, rare and native plants, vegetables and herbs, trees and shrubs, vines and water plants: you can make all your plant purchases for the year at once.

2. Useful catalog and new website. You will find more information in the catalog and on the website than on most plant labels in regular nurseries. Starting this year, we are doing our best to find as many color photos of our plants as possible for you.

3. Huge variety of unusual plants. To buy the out-of-the-ordinary plants we sell, you’d have to search local nurseries, dozens of different catalogs, and many Internet sources. For instance, in 2008 we had 33 different varieties of stonecrop, 21 coral bells, 42 coleus, 42 hosta, and 47 heirloom tomatoes. Looking everywhere for that special plant? Let us know so we can try to find it for you.

4. Logical organization. The long straight tables with numbered signs mean you can both browse without worrying that you’re missing something and also locate the plant you need because it is right where it is supposed to be. Try finding a store with a system like that!

5. Local growers. Most of our plants are grown in Minnesota and its next-door neighbors (including Canada). Our growers can often grow otherwise unavailable plants from seed just for the sale!

6. Great starter plants. Stores tend to sell older, larger plants (which helps for instant gardening), but they do cost more.

7. Unbelievable prices. Even our larger plants are inexpensive — just check on the prices in a store or nursery and you’ll see! Also, compare our last year’s prices to this year’s — we try hard not to raise them, and sometimes manage to decrease them. On Sunday, everything is half price!

8. Profit goes to school scholarships. It’s just nice to know that your money is going to a good cause. The school kids, their parents (including parents whose kids graduated long, long ago!) and school staff all contribute their time and hard work to the plant sale.

9. Community project. Many volunteers (we expect close to 1,000 this year!), including several who work many hundreds of hours a year on the sale, make the sale both possible and enjoyable.

10. Once-a-year, awe-inspiring event. The Friends School Plant Sale is the largest plant sale in the Midwest. It’s exciting for beginning or experienced gardeners. Shoppers tell us that they find their hearts beating faster just driving past the State Fairgrounds in early spring. And, when the catalog is finally out, well, the only moment better than that is when you finally walk into the Grandstand and see 66,000 square feet of plants.

A small selection of the carts from Friday morning.