YES! There will be a 2021 Friends School Plant Sale, a fund-raiser for the Friends School of Minnesota, a small Quaker K – 8 school in Saint Paul.
We're making many changes for everybody's safety, and will keep updating these pages. There's a brief overview below, much more in the Doing the Sale section, or see the flyer we mailed in January explaining the changes (PDF, 1MB). We'll also add posts to the Blog section, especially this one that's like a glossary of terms from the catalog.
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.
What will be different in 2021?
It will be outdoors
The sale will be in the huge parking lot that’s the Midway during the State Fair.
You'll need a reserved entry time to shop
To keep with public health guidelines, everyone will sign up ahead of time for an entry time.
Seeds, bulbs, and bareroots will be sold online only
Purchase them ahead of time. They will be sold completely separately from the plants at the Fairgrounds.
The sale will open a day earlier than usual and with extended hours. There will be no printed catalog — the updated plant list will be available online here on March 1.
Find out more: Map and floorplan | What's new | COVID safety | Seeds & bulbs | Getting in | Checking out
Recent New Plants
Photo courtesy of PAC Elsner/Westhoff - www.pac-elsner / www.westflowers.de
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)
