The Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens fall sale has expanded into a full-on fall festival featuring not only garden tours and rhody sales just in time for fall planting, but also live music, activities for kids, specialty nursery and garden art sales and a Beerkerk Garden beer garden, featuring bratwurst and microbrew sales.
It’s all happening from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 3531 Meerkerk Lane, Greenbank, on Whidbey Island.
Admission is free, though donations to the not-for-profit display garden and forest reserve will be gladly accepted.
Garden art will include wood, stone and metal sculpture, glass, twig furniture and arbors, birdbaths, deer cages, banners and more.
Species and hybrid rhododendrons propagated from the Meerkerk heritage collection and new hybrids from Jim Barlup and Frank Fujioka will be for sale, as well as cyclamen and other woodland plants from Bouquet Banque in Marysville, temperate ferns from Fancy Fronds in Gold Bar and hardy fuchsias from Robinwood Nursery of Vashon Island.
Profits from the sale of plants and artwork will go toward maintenance of the Meerkerk gardens and preserve.
Please wear comfortable and weather-appropriate walking shoes and attire. Ponchos and umbrellas will be at the garden gatehouse. Meerkerk is wheelchair accessible.
See a complete list of festival participants at www.meerkerkgardens.org or call 360-678-1912 for more information.
Bonus: If you don’t get enough beer at the Beerkerk Gardens, you can stop by Langley for the city’s third-annual Oktoberfest. See www.visitlangley.com or call 360-221-6765 for more Oktoberfest details.
Green up:
The Green Everett Renewable Living Fair will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Snohomish County PUD, 2320 California St., Everett. “Discover Sustainable Living on a Budget” is the theme for the fifth-annual event, held in conjunction with the annual Washington State Solar Tour.
Participants can learn green methods for raising healthy families, cultivating gardens and tending backyard chickens, plus ideas for low-impact entertainment, cheap transportation and more.
Keynote speaker Vicki Robin, author of “Your Money or Your Life,” will speak from 1 to 2 p.m. Artis the Spoonman, a Port Townsend-based entertainer, will perform from 2 to 3 p.m.
Other exhibitors, informational speakers and workshop leaders will speak throughout the day.
There will also be food and drinks for sale, activities for kids, an alternative car show, a hybrid bus display, an incandescent light bulb exchange and a seed swap.
Events are presented by the PUD, Green Everett and the Foundation for Sustainable Community.
Visitors to the fair can also use the event to jump-start a self-guided driving tour of 17 Snohomish County homes featured on Solar Washington’s tour of solar-powered homes.
Handouts and tour information will be available. See solarwa.digitalaid.net for more information on the statewide tour.
See www.green-everett.org for a full fair schedule. Call 425-258-4940 for more information.
Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037; sjackson@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
