Learn and shop at Garden Expo

For gardening enthusiasts, this has been a challenging spring.

As in, when is spring going to arrive?

For those itching to spend sunny days outdoors, the ninth annual Inland Empire Gardeners’ Garden Expo arrives just in time.

Where else, asks club president ViAnn Meyer, can people shop for plants, garden arts and crafts, enjoy music and entertainment, maybe win a door prize and learn something new, all in one spot?

“Plan the whole day around it,” Meyer said. “We’ll have at least 50 vendors just selling plants. Then there are the mom-and-pop crafters. High-end artists. It’s all about gardening.”

The event, which is produced by a volunteer crew of about 60 people, will be held Saturday in and around Spokane Community College’s Lair. It will sport more than 200 booths, a gardener’s rummage sale and a new children’s area dubbed the Kool Kids Korner, where little hands can get dirty doing garden-related crafts.

One of the biggest draws is the big vendors who come over from the Seattle area, Meyer said.

“They bring funky plants that you’ll never find over here,” she said.

There’s more to see, too. Four seminars will be held in the Lair’s 350-seat auditorium, featuring gardening personality Phyllis Stevens, historian Marsha Rooney from the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, author Linda Beutler and Master Gardener Maralee Karwoski. Smaller demonstrations will be held throughout the day.

This year’s theme is “Hocus Crocus – There’s Magic in the Dirt.” Reflecting that magical theme will be a demonstration fairy garden, complete with fairy houses, enchanted creatures and woodland animals, Meyer said.

Admission is free.

“This show is by gardeners for gardeners,” Meyer said, adding that her club bills this as the largest gardening show of its kind that is volunteer-based and free to the public. “We’re doing it because we love it.”

While the Inland Empire Gardeners don’t keep an official tally of attendance, SCC officials have told club officers that based on parking, an estimated 12,000 people checked out the expo last year.

“I used to have to send out letters to all these different groups. Now people are calling us. The vendors are talking about it,” Meyer said. “Mothers go with daughters. Families go. Girlfriends go. Garden clubs from around the area make a day of it. We’ll never be Bloomsday, but we are the Bloomsday of the garden set.”