On Saturday May 17th, 2014, after a day of flooding rain, the skies cleared for a perfect day for our Plant Sale! Our newly installed stone wall, capped with thick reclaimed bluestone served as a perfect shelf for many of the donated plants being offered to raise funds for the Friends of Ned Wolf Park.
Volunteers started setting up at 7am while it was still chilly outside, to get plants organized into categories, labeled, and priced before the 10 am start time
Tables for information about the Friends of Ned Wolf Park, and for the 5 raffle prizes were set up in view of the newly laid brick pavers which features the first 24 bricks with custom inscriptions for our donors.
Raffle prizes were
A. a pair of dwarf hollies, Ilex 'Serendipity'
B. a glazed ceramic planter for shade with a mix of annuals and perennials
C. a large pot of the much coveted 'Yellow-Striped' Lily-of-the-Valley grown and admired in the park
D. a large clump of the Chinese Ground Orchid, Bletilla striata with it's first magenta flower just starting to bloom
E. a framed print of a digital portrait of the Wissahickon's Thomas Mill covered bridge, by E.M.Sternfels
With all the shady gardens in West Mt. Airy, there was lots of interest in the collection of donated shade plants that lined the new stone wall down to McCallum Street
With so many plants to choose from, decisions were hard to make.....
....but great advice was offered by our volunteer staff, most of whom are passionate gardeners, like Mark Klempner!
By the end of the sale at 1 pm, Eric Sternfels was able to add the crowning flower to our Trellis-o-meter, signalling we'd surpassed our fund-raising goal for Phase II of our Terrace Wall Campaign. We'd also raised enough to meet the annual operating expenses to maintain the park for 2014.
Note: all photos are courtesy of Steve Donegan
Note: all photos are courtesy of Steve Donegan
