ARLINGTON — The Arlington Garden Club’s annual plant sale generated an estimated $600 in its first hour in the Arlington City Hall plaza on Saturday, May 11.

Mike Conner, who currently heads up the plant sale, estimated that the event dates back to at least the 1930s, and proudly touted its varieties of plants to entice home horticulturists.

“We’ve got edibles, herbs, indoors, perennials, shrubs, trees, sedums, shade plants and raspberries,” Conner said. “We’ve got a good selection this year.”

Conner credited Garden Club members with providing a broad assortment of plants by planting early and often.

“One lady in Marysville potted her plants for this sale last fall,” Conner said. “The money that we make from these sales is reinvested in horticultural endeavors throughout the community, from the horticulture programs at the Arlington and Darrington high schools, to the hanging baskets of plants that went up around town.”

The Arlington Garden Club has contributed to the planting of trees within the city, the maintenance of Lebanon Park and Centennial Trail, and even scholarships for local students, but for those who stopped by the City Hall plaza to check out the tables full of plants, the sale’s selection of plants was its own reward.

“I come here every year,” said Mary Larson. “All these plants are unique, and they’re the heartiest ones I’ve ever owned. I can plant them in the fall and they’ll winter over. If I buy it here, it’ll live for years, as long as I do what the folks in the Garden Club say.”

Even though she’s a member of the Arlington Garden Club herself, Inez Kuhnhausen got momentarily confused when she saw some lovely delphiniums right next to the Garden Club’s long tables full of plants.

“It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized the delphiniums were part of the Mayor’s Garden,” Kuhnhausen laughed. “They weren’t part of the sale.”

Heidi Thieman’s appreciation for the Arlington Garden Club’s selection was less aesthetic and more culinary.

“I just love the cookbook they put out,” Thieman said of the Arlington Garden Club publication. “There’s too many good recipes in there for me to decide which ones are my favorites.”

The Arlington Garden Club meets the second Monday of every month from September through June at the Gleneagle Family Restaurant, located at the Gleneagle Golf Course in Arlington, at 11:30 a.m. Its craft days at the Regency Care Center take place on the fourth Wednesday of every month at 3 p.m. For more information, log onto www.arlingtongardenclub.org.