Gardenfest

Gardenfest

gardenfest Reid and Hegnes

Our April Membership Meeting is traditionally dedicated to gathering the plants that we sell at our Gardenfest event in May. Dirt Diggers is our all-out effort to dig and divide proven perennials from members' gardens. In 2019, based on our Club’s “Position on Invasives,” we carefully evolved our digging efforts to ensure that we would not spread environmentally destructive invasives. 

 

Gardenfest is FCGC’s all day plant sale and educational gardening event.

 

Invasive Plantings

Invasive Plantings

A large part of our focus in selling perennials at Gardenfest involves educating buyers about the cultural needs of plants to ensure success in their own gardens.  We do not sell invasive plants- many of which were introduced to agriculture without full knowledge of attributes that might displace native plants from their ecosystems.  One has only to look at wetlands taken over by a former popular perennial, Lythrum salicaria (purple loosestrife), to see the extent of damage invasive species can exact.

 

To that end, our horticulture gallery does not include invasive species.  Some of the plants available in retail centers are invasive, including favorites such as Euonymus alatus (burning bush) and Berberis thunbergii (red barberry).

 

For more information on the environmental impact of invasive species:

http://www.dcnr.pa.gov/Conservation/WildPlants/InvasivePlants/Pages/default.aspx

 

A full list of invasive species in Pennsylvania, including those on the “watch list”:

http://www.docs.dcnr.pa.gov/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_20026634.pdf

Gardenfest