NEW TRADITION: Seed Exchange at Blandy

OUR CAMPO DE FIORI IS HERE!

GARDEN FAIR IS COMING TO THE STATE ARBORETUM OF VIRGINIA

Mother's Day Weekend

  
  Garden Fair is held every Mother’s Day Weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. rain or shine both days. In addition to the plant sale, free events include Arboretum tours, bird walks, mini-workshops, and children’s nature walks and other activities for kids.
  Garden Fair is a huge plant and garden supply sale, with dozens of vendors of high-quality plants including annuals, perennials, small trees, shrubs, boxwood, bonsai, and more.
  The Foundation also usually offers for sale a selection of plants divided or propagated from the Arboretum collection.

MAKE SURE YOU COME TO THE COURTYARD AND VISIT OUR SHOP WHILE YOU'RE HERE!

Directions

SPRING NEWSLETTER

OUR SHOP has made some big changes.  Instead of closing up for the cold winter months our valiant volunteers have forged through snow and icy weather to keep the door open for visitors.  Sales are never as strong in January as in warmer seasons, but our customers appreciated being able to stop in and shop for spring.

Our volunteer staff has grown during the past year.  We seem to be training in new and enthusiastic sales clerks on a regular basis, making it much easier to keep the shop open more than ever before.

GARDENING TOOLS have arrived.  New items in stock for the gardener include the “Potmaker” for recycling newspapers into biodegradable starter pots for seeds, Hori Hori tools for digging, potting trays to keep things tidy, misters, clippers and more.

SEEDS – LOTS OF THEM – DON’T PROCRASTINATE!  We have filled our racks with more than a hundred types of special seed varieties guaranteed to make your mouth water.  Many of these are heritage and/or organic.  This year we decided to concentrate on annuals in the flower department.  Sweet peas, double poppies, salpiglossis, sensitive plant, sunflowers, we’ve got special varieties galore.

We also have many kinds of vegetable seeds such as microgreens, cut-again baby mesclun, French radishes, cosmic purple carrots, golden beets, japanese cucumbers, watercress, black krim tomatoes, green zebra tomatoes – all are in stock right now.

OUR TRADITION FOR FALL IS BULBS.  For the last two years we have taken orders for paperwhite narcissus bulbs for forcing (just in time for Christmas).  This tradition will continue.  Please call us to place your order or watch for the announcement in this newsletter sometime this summer.

NEW TRADITION FOR NEXT YEAR – A SEED EXCHANGE.  January 30 is National Seed Swap Day.  We are making it a project to have our very own Our Shop Seed Exchange next year.  So save your seeds.  This is lots of fun and doesn’t cost anything! 

BOOKS MAKE UP A LARGE PART of our sales.  During the last year we have really enlarged our selection of nature, hiking, botany and gardening books.  This is so popular with arboretum visitors and FOSA members that we will continue to add more and more books.

YES WE TWITTER.  Join us on www.twitter/ourshopblandy for daily updates about the world around us as we see it.  We have found so many new friends this way and we have found many sources which you might find useful.

AND WE BLOG…Check out www.ourshopblandy.blogspot.com for pictures and chatter about the shop and the arboretum as seen through the eyes of Our Shop.

THERE’S A WEBSITE TOO.  www.ourshopunderthearch.org.  Check it out.  Or find us through the main FOSA website link for Our Shop.

STOP IN AND SEE US AT OUR SHOP.  Pick up some seeds, tools and books.  Or perhaps you would like to make a commitment and join us as a volunteer!  But whatever your reason, just stop in – we’d love to see you.

SPRING TWEAK AT OUR SHOP

We spent yesterday afternoon putting our slatwall to better use with the help of display hooks, shelves, etc.  And a busy time it was climbing mini ladders and moving things here and there!  Our space is very limited in the shop which measures 9' X 15' in footprint.  So we are going up the walls!

A FEW OF OUR BOOKS

We do have more --- this is just a sampling!

LAST FALL AT ARBORFEST

Last October's Our Shop booth at Arborfest.  The weather was beautiful and we met lots of wonderful people!