Each year on Mother’s Day weekend in May, Friends School puts on the biggest fundraising plant sale in Minnesota, perhaps even in the Midwest! Over 2,000 varieties of plants are offered for sale on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

The 2008 sale was held May 9-11. The 2009 sale will be held May 8, 9 and 10. The hours are:

• Friday, May 8, from 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
• Saturday, May 9, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
• Sunday, May 10, from 12 noon-4 pm. Sunday is half price.

The sale is held in the State Fair’s Grandstand Building, where there is lots of indoor space with plenty of light and even indoor bathrooms! Free parking is available anywhere on the Fairgrounds, but especially in the Midway, just southwest of the Grandstand.

We stock a full line of annuals, perennials, climbing plants, native wildflowers, and vegetables, with selected water plants, roses, and trees and shrubs. A catalog of our 2008 offerings is available for reference, with PDF versions available in the catalog section of the site.

Printed versions of the catalog are mailed around April 1 each year to anyone on our mailing list or can be found at many libraries, coffee shops and natural food co-ops in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. If you’d like to get on our mailing list for next year, please email frontoffice@fsmn.org – include “add to plant sale list” in the reference line.

Entirely volunteer-run, the Friends School Plant Sale has become a Twin Cities institution with loyal fans. You can become a volunteer (which gives the added incentive of being able to shop at the pre-sale Thursday event). Signups are open February 1 through the week of the sale.