While Supplies Last Hundreds Expected To Shop For Popular Perennials At Friends Of Manito’S Annual Plant Sale Saturday

Why buy any old persicaria when you can have the latest variety with a reddish brown chevron stripe on the leaf?

The same can be said for the myriad of hostas on the market today. Some are newer, and just work better at drawing the eye into the garden.

Spokane’s many dedicated gardeners have gotten so sophisticated over the years their tastes in plants have turned to specialty perennials, the kinds of specimens that aren’t seen just anywhere.

These folks have gardens full of healthy plants, and little space for new additions. If they buy something, it has to be interesting.

“There is just so much more out there these days,” said Stephanie Welch, plant manager for Saturday’s big plant sale at Manito Park at 10 a.m.

“A lot of people are looking for what’s new,” she said. “They are looking for that special plant.”

For example, there is a new variety of cimicifuga, also known as bugbane or black snakeroot, that has a very dark, deep purple leaf. Appropriately, it is named black negligee and will be on sale Saturday.

This is part of a trend in gardening to use foliage plants that look impressive throughout the season.

Welch and other volunteers of the Friends of Manito Park intend to satisfy gardeners whose tastes are pickier than most.

They have more than 20,000 hardy perennial plants for sale in the maintenance area east of Gaiser Conservatory next to Tekoa Street.

The sale isn’t exclusively designed for collectors. It is geared to a broad range of gardeners from beginners to experts.

The selections include a lot of traditional garden standbys, plants that have been used for years in cottage gardens. They include iris, delphinium, black-eyed Susan, phlox and coreopsis.

“They are the backbones. They provide more of the framing,” Welch said.

There’s also a huge selection of plants that are new to the market and harder to find.

Prices range from $2 for the more common species in small pots to $14 for the most popular new hostas and extreme specialty plants.

Hosta collectors can find three of the most recent award-winning hostas, including June, Paul’s Glory and Sagae.

“We try to get a good cross section of plants,” Welch said.

The sale will have decorative grasses. It also has a selection of divisions from plants that are growing in the Ferris perennial garden. Also, more than 1,000 house plants will be included in the sale.

A long line is expected to form in the hour before the sale opens to the public.

Last year, the volunteers netted $55,000 from the sale after more than 2,000 customers were counted by noon.

“People go out of here just loaded,” said Judy Nelson, vice president of the Friends of Manito, who is managing this year’s sale.

Despite the early lineup and big crowd, organizers said customers come and go fairly fast. There will be 10 cashiers to speed the checkout lines.

Only about 100 plants went unsold last year.

This year’s sale has 4,000 more plants than last year, and organizers are hoping to raise even more money, which goes toward improvements at Manito Park.

Since the Friends organization was formed about a decade ago, it has contributed nearly $160,000 to the park. It currently has more than 800 members.

Money from the organization has gone for the scheduled renovation of the conservatory, a security system in the Japanese Garden, play equipment in lower Manito, improvements at Duncan Garden and other projects.

The plant sale is the group’s biggest fund-raiser.

The volunteer work begins in the spring with the purchase of seeds and starts. The Friends members tend them throughout the spring and summer until the annual sale in September. This year, they used 30,000 pounds of potting soil.

“I love Manito Park,” said Joan Talbot, 90, one of the 100 volunteers who helped raise the plants. She said she’s been going to Manito Park for 30 years, but volunteering only for the past two.

“It’s given me so much joy,” she said of the park. “I owe it.”

A number of Spokane’s master gardeners, who are also Friends volunteers, will be on hand during the sale to answer questions.

Invariably, the secret to success is finding the right location in the garden for any particular plant depending on its needs for sunlight, shade, water, soil and nutrients.

It’s another reason experienced gardeners have become so selective in their plant choices. They need to match the right plant to the spot that happens to be open in the garden.

“I think this is a more mature gardening community,” Welch said.