Our Most Important Funding Event
Our Annual Plant Sale serves as our main funding source for all our programs. It helps support Educational Outreach programs and community gardening projects that the WSU Extension Pierce County Master Gardener Program provides year-round—including youth outreach, sustainable horticultural education, and gardening clinics for the public.
For example, our free Ask-a-Master Gardener clinics, Demonstration Gardens, Youth Gardening Workshops, Saturday Garden Talks, or Master Gardener presentations are all underwritten by the proceeds we receive through our Annual Plant Sale. To keep these important, educational programs going, we depend on your generosity. Thank you for attending, sponsoring, or donating at any time throughout the year!
Big Changes in 2026
Increasingly cramped at the WSU Extension Center, we moved to the nearby Washington State Fairgrounds: more parking; indoors in case of rain and just more room to bring you more plants!
Happily, these changes were well received as we set funding records for the Foundation. This helps to ensure that we can continue to deliver gardening and environmental stewardship education to Pierce County and grow our programs. Thank you!
Agriplex at the Fairgrounds
It Takes a Village
Creating a ‘Pop-up Nursery’ for just one weekend per year requires a lot of effort from a lot of people and organizations. With our move to the Washington State Fairgrounds, we also had many additional expenses. We’d like to thank our Sponsors, Vendors and Community Outreach partners for all their efforts in making 2026 such a success.
Sponsors:
Vendors:
- Blue Frog Nursery
- Washington State Dahlia Society
- Pierce County Beekeepers Association
- Bizarre Botanicals
- Gallucci Learning Garden
- Knox Cellars Mason Bees
- Puget Sound Daylily Club
- Washington Corrections Center for Women
Community Outreach:
- Pierce County Planning and Public Works Sewer Division
- Pierce County Dept of Emergency Management Outreach
- North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS)
- Puget Sound Mycological Society
- SoundGRO Fertilizer
We’re looking for Sponsors for 2027! Your sponsorship not only showcases your commitment to our community’s well-being and environmental education, but it will also give your business positive exposure to thousands of attendees throughout the weekend and other cross-marketing opportunities.
Proceeds from the Plant Sale support:
- Ask A Master Gardener
We answer your difficult gardening questions.. free of charge… online and at 16 locations across Pierce County - Speakers Bureau
We give over 100 talks per year throughout the Pierce County Library System and for your organization, free of charge. - Puyallup Demonstration Garden
We demonstrate gardening fundamentals at our ‘live classroom’ in Puyallup.
- Youth Gardening Workshops
We host more than a dozen hands-on gardening workshops per year, free, for the next generation of gardeners. - Gig Harbor Demonstration Garden
Puyallup too far away? We’ve got a second demonstration Garden at Sehmel Homestead Park in Gig Harbor. - Saturday Garden Talks
We deliver talks on gardening topics of interest in both of our Demonstration Gardens.
We’re already working on the 2027 Plant Sale!
First, we begin by growing as many plants as we can. Starting thousands of plants from seeds, cuttings and divisions. Right after the Labor Day Weekend, our volunteers labors begin for the next year’s plant sale. We have three teams that swing into action, one after the other.
Next, the Propagation Team gets to work. They produce around 3,000 plants and are especially known for their wide selection of fuchsias, begonias, fancy geraniums and specialty plants.
Meanwhile, the Donated Plants and Tomato Teams get busy. The Donated Plants Team works tirelessly to offer a diverse selection of perennials, grasses, and Pacific Northwest natives that thrive in sun or shade while the Tomato Team simultaneously oversees nearly 4,000 tomato plants across 50 different cultivars.
It all comes together the first weekend in May.
Once we’ve marshaled all our resources, we start on the Monday of the last week in April training volunteers on all the aspects of running our two-day plant sale. We want you to have the best possible experience while shopping for the broadest possible array of plants—all at a reasonable price. It is a lot of work, but everyone involved grows from the experience. It is one of the most rewarding ways for us to provide you the plants you want, while bringing in the revenues we need to fund our programs and expand our services across the years.
Thank you all for your participation in the Master Gardener Annual Plant Sale!