I’m Retiring

For the past six years, I’ve been chairman of the Master Gardener Plant Sale.  It totally consumes parts of my life.  From potting plants, to making signs, writing publicity articles, to setup week, I pretty much work on plant sale stuff throughout the year.

Our sale on Saturday was a huge success.  Within an hour and a half of opening the doors, we had sold the vast majority of our thousands of plants.  Unfortunately, the cold, wet winter did some serious damage to many of our plants we had propagated for the sale.  But we still had a building full!

We have some very loyal customers who come every year, waiting in line for a couple of hours so they can be the first in the building, getting the pick of the plants.  With several hundred customers, rows and rows of tables filled with plants, plants in very nook and cranny of the building, it can be overwhelming for first timers.

But at the end of the day, we make a ton of money for our projects and charitable giving.

Now it’s on to a new project.  Not sure yet what it will be, but I want to do something that will benefit people, help them learn to have a love of gardening that sustains me in my darkest hours, and is a community service.

I know that the Native Plant Society is going to become a bigger part of my life.  I absolutely love going out to the woods to rescue native plants from the bulldozer.  I’m slowly filling my yard with natives, displacing much of the nonnatives.  I’m not a purist, but I do love that the natives can pretty much take care of themselves once they are established.  Maybe my new ‘career’ will be educating people about the importance of our native plants.

Whatever I decide to do in my ‘next life’, I want to make sure that nothing consumes me and causes me to ignore my family and friends.

 

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