Livermore-Amador Valley Garden Club (LAVGC) is a non-profit educational service organization affiliated with California Garden Clubs, Inc. serving the Tri-Valley Area: Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton, San Ramon and Sunol.

LAVGC Vision: Gardening for fun and purpose while working together to share knowledge and promote environmental responsibility.

LAVGC Mission: Encourage interest in all phases of home gardening; Promote better horticultural practices; Promote civic beauty; Promote conservation of natural resources.

LAVGC Brochure.

LAVGC offers special interest groups and workshops on a variety of related subjects.

Different special interest groups include Edible Gardening, Floral Design, Garden Tours and Seed Sharing.

Members take tours to see outstanding gardens, nurseries and to attend horticultural events. Members also perform community service locally and nationally.

LAVGC meets the second Thursday of September through June at Alisal Elementary School in Pleasanton.

LAVGC Speakers: past and future

2019 Annual Plant Sale

Saturday, April 6, 2019 9:00 am - 1:00 pm. Rain or Shine. Location: Amador High School Parking lot. 1155 Santa Rita Rd., Pleasanton.

Flyer Distribution: Please download, print and distribute the 2019 LAVGC Plant Sale Flyer to your friends, family and co-workers. Open 2019 LAVGC Plant Sale Flyer (Quarter Size) to print 4 small flyers on 1 page.

We urge members to continue propagating and caring for your donated plants for the sale. As usual, at the March meeting, we will have a supply of plastic pots of various sizes and plant identification labels available for you to take as needed. We need 4 inch square pots so if you have any, please bring them to the meeting to share.

We had a meeting of the Plant Sale organization committee on February 20. We learned that seeds of a goodly number of vegetable plants have been sown. We also had some members who had large numbers of plants that needed division and potting up, so we held small work parties (4-8 members or so) to do this work. Despite a very rainy February, this work should have been completed when you read this. We thank our crew of Hearty Potters who participated in these dig-ups and pot-ups. At the March meeting, we will again have sign-up sheets ready for members to volunteer to work a shift at the Plant Sale on Saturday April 6 or at the pricing parties on Friday April 5. We also put out a call for tables, chairs and pop-ups to lend us for the Plant Sale day. Last year, we had a sufficient number of these items so we did not have to rent anything. We hope that our members will be equally generous this year.

If you know of new venues to publicize our sale, please let Publicity chair Jerri Long. know. See the LAVGC Yearbook for Jerri's additional contact information. You can also use social media to spread the word in your community. For instance, you take a photo of the Plant Sale flyer and post it on Facebook or Next Door.

Some new features for the 2019 Plant Sale will include a customer survey where we ask customers how they heard about the sale, in which community they live, and the types of gardening that interest them. We will ask them to give us their e-mail address so then we can contact them in future years. This will produce a database on our customers that will be useful for future planning. Another new feature will be separate sales slips for the boutique items. This will give greater flexibility in setting the price for the boutique items, which are often unique, and have an individual price tag on each item. Plants will continue to be priced according to a color coded tag in each pot. We plan to enlarge the holding area to avoid the congestion as customers continue to shop and add their newest plants to those already in the holding area. We will set up a Membership table to publicize our club and recruit new members. We will also print on the back of the sales slip, our website address and where the proceeds of the sale will be used.

This year we will have just one drop-off location and that will be at Robyn Gade's home, 4035 Cristobal Way in Pleasanton. She lives near Amador Valley High School and has a large space that will hold all of the plants (edibles and ornamentals) and also all the items for the boutique. We will have signs in her yard directing members exactly where to put their plants, so we end up with like categories of plants next to one another. For instance, all the roses will be put next to one another, all of the irises, all of the succulents, all of the tomatoes, all of the herbs, and so on. By having this grouping of plants, the pricing activity will be more efficient and consistent. This will allow us to organize the array of plants on Friday afternoon much like they will be set-up at the high school parking lot. Thus, we will be able to transport blocks of plants and streamline the set-up activity on Saturday morning. For those who positively, absolutely cannot deliver your plants to the Pleasanton location, we can use Norm and Tina's house in Livermore, 537 LaGrange Lane, as a drop-off location and ask the Transportation team to make a delivery of these items to Pleasanton. Please remember that if you work at the pricing party on Friday, you can buy one or two items pre-sale.

Items donated for Maudie's Boutique should have a clear relation to gardening. In the past, we have had all kinds of ceramic, terra cotta, and clay pots of all different sizes. We have had garden tools, hoses, watering cans, as well as items such as trellises and tomato cages to give you a range of possible items.. Garden statuary, bird baths, fountains and the like are also suitable.

A note on labeling. The most important thing is to identify the plant and provide information to our customers. Imagine if you were the customer buying the plant what would you need to know about the plant. Important information would include the type of plant, what exposure it needs (sun or shade), water needs, height and spread, color of flowers, etc. Please mention if the plant is an aggressive grower so the customer is aware. If you have access to a computer the best and easiest way is to print out the information and tape it to the label. This is especially good if you have multiple plants of the same kind and variety. If you have to write the information on the label itself, please use pencil as it holds up to sunshine. Felt-tip pens and the like fade rather quickly.

Edibles for the Plant Sale

If you are planning on growing any edibles for the plant sale, could you please let Barbara Stott know what you might be able to donate as soon as you have that information available. See the LAVGC Yearbook for Barbara's additional contact information. Please use the square 4 inch pots as the round ones tend to fall over and we end up with plants being discarded because they have been knocked off the table. The pots only have to be approximately 4 inches, sometimes they are a little bit smaller and that is absolutely fine. Six packs sell well too but 1 gallons are slow to move, probably because people don't want to pay the extra money. Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant always sell well. We never seem to have enough squash, beans or melons so those would be especially appreciated. We are also focusing more on herbs this year so any donations of herbs would be great. Although lettuce and other cool season crops, that of course can still be grown in April, don't seem to be as popular as the warm season plants, it would be nice to offer a small selection as some people are very pleased to be able to purchase these plants. We hope to have fruit trees and berries so I am excited that we will hopefully have a broad offering this year. Please note all edible donations should be dropped off at the Pleasanton location if possible. In anticipation, thanks for growing for the Garden Club Plant Sale!

While the Plant Sale is a big overall effort, if each member does his/her part doing some activity before or during the sale, there is a tremendous satisfaction in participating, plus the camaraderie of working together with other members. And you get to wear one of the nifty club aprons while working! Many hands make light work. Stay tuned in March for updates about the 2019 Plant Sale in future newsletters and announcements at the meetings.

If you have questions, comments or ideas about the plant sale, please contact the Plant Sale Chairmen Bill Tallon and Daniel McCright. See the LAVGC Yearbook for their additional contact information.

---