The Friends School Plant Sale is a fund-raiser for the Friends School of Minnesota, a small Quaker K – 8 school in Saint Paul.
The 2021 plant sale is now over — thanks to everyone who shopped and volunteered! We apologize to anyone who couldn't get a shopping time or was confounded by all of the extra process required during this pandemic year. We hope to see you next year with some things back to "normal" and others possibly improved from what we have learned from this way of doing things.
New—an extra day: Thursday, May 6
Friday and Saturday, May 7 and 8
Sunday, May 9
“Doing” the Sale
For more than 30 years, shopping at the Friends School Plant Sale at the Minnesota State Fair has been the great get-together for gardeners.
How was it different in 2021?
It was all outdoors
The sale was in the huge parking lot that’s the Midway during the State Fair.
Everyone needed a reserved entry time to shop
To keep with public health guidelines, everyone signed up ahead of time for an entry time.
Seeds, bulbs, and bareroots were sold online only
They were purchased ahead of time, and sold completely separately from the plants at the Fairgrounds.
The sale opened a day earlier than usual and with extended hours. There was no printed catalog — the updated plant list went online here on March 1.
Find out more: Map and floorplan | What's new | COVID safety | Seeds & bulbs | Getting in | Checking out
Minnesota Water Garden Society
The Minnesota Water Garden Society held their sale separately nearby on the same days, just west of the Grandstand.
They sold plants that like wet feet, including a large selection of Lotus, waterlilies, bog plants, rain garden plants, just about anything that likes moist soil. Plus a large selection of koi, shubunkin and goldfish, and carnivorous pitcher plants.
They also required registration to shop (separate from shopping signups for Friends School Plant Sale). They were open similar hours to Friends School Plant Sale.
Important News
No to neonic pesticides
The plant sale's planners have worked hard to make sure our plants have not been treated with neonicotinoids, common pesticides that are now suspected of killing bees and other pollinators.
- Read our full statement on this important issue.
- See our 2016 update on our neonic policy.
- Check out this statement about how our edible plants are grown.
- Watch a video made by our middle school students called "A Plea for Pollinators" about the neonic problem.
(Image: Bee on Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia. Photo by Michelle Mero Riedel)
