Manito adds tropical choices to plant sales

The Friends of Manito organization is warming up to a new sales idea: adding a tropical house plant sale to their current lineup of plant sales during the spring and summer each year.

The next tropical house plant sale is scheduled for 1 p.m. on March 8 east of the Conservatory at Manito Park. Plant sale managers are hoping that Spokane gardeners will turn out to support the sale so that it can become an annual event.

The Friends’ top gardeners have used their expertise to assemble a collection of colorful and unusual tropicals that are at the forefront of the horticulture trade, said Janis Saiki, plant manager.

“We are trying to have the very newest and most unique and the best plants we can have,” she said. “These are the more unusual tropicals you can’t find readily.”

With their vividly colored foliage and vein patters, the specimens are suitable for indoor houseplants during the winter and outdoor plants during the summer.

In addition to the 1 p.m. sale on March 8, the Friends is also sponsoring a seminar at 10 a.m. at Manito Park’s meeting room on how to arrange eye-catching container designs. Expert gardener Maralee Karwoski, of Spokane, will lead the seminar. The cost is $5. Pre-registration is required by calling the Friends office at 456-8038.

Seminar participants will get the first chance to purchase the tropical plants being offered for sale to the general public at 1 p.m.

If the public shows enough interest in the tropical plants, the sale could become an ongoing addition to the Friends lineup of sales in June and September each year. The sales raise money for Manito Park improvements such as the cedar fence surrounding the Japanese garden and new irrigation for the playground area on the south side of the park.

While this will be the third year that Friends has sold tropical house plants, it is the first time that they have tried to reach beyond their membership to the broader public, she said.

Among the plants for sale will be a 4-foot-tall elephant ear with raised veins and a combination of light green on the top sides of the leaves with chocolate underneath.

A cabbage palm with narrow, deep burgundy leaves could grow to 3 feet, and is part of the sale. Also included is a 3-foot banana plant with burgundy splashes on its leaves.

“We are trying to have the real exotic tropicals,” Saiki said.