Celebrate the fact that spring has sprung and fill your garden with water wise plants that will survive the long hot summer. Buy plants from a large number of knowledgeable gardeners.
Refreshments and seating will be available so leave your purchases in the plant crèche then relax and talk plants with other gardeners. There will also be parking available in several locations and a drive through system for convenient plant collection.
About the Plant Fair
The Plant Fair 24 is the birth child of a group of inspirational and enthusiastic Algarvian nurserymen and women and home gardeners who have been talking for years about having another plant fair in the spring. This because they felt as it was the time of the year when the days lengthen and get warmer, when most gardeners feel the urge to get planting and need to be able to buy appropriate plants. Similarly, the planners were aware, as all of us gardeners are, that there is the caveat of how and what we should plant bearing in mind that the Algarve has water restrictions after a severe drought.
With those factors in mind the conveners felt the emphasis in the Plant Fair should be on plants from Mediterranean regions which have adapted to survive long summer droughts. Such plants would either be native plants or those that come from other Mediterranean zones. However there are also plants from other climatic regions such as exuberant pink sprawlers Podranea ricasoliana (Eastern Cape, South Africa) and sweetly perfumed shrubs Elaeagnus × submacrophylla (Holland) that can also handle long dry periods and thrive. So, by selecting and buying appropriate plants for our gardens and guided by fellow gardeners, it is more than possible to grow a beautiful garden.
Fortunately, the idea of an independent spring plant fair in the east of the Algarve after a hiatus of six years was encouraged and helped along by the Museu do Traje and the São Brás de Alportel Câmara.
So, with all their ducks in a row, the Plant Fair has provided a rich and wonderful selection of plants for sale. There will be indigenous and suitable exotic plants, trees both fruit and ornamental, and advice on bonsais and herbs.
Your visit to the Plant Fair will be more like a social call on gardening friends with opportunities to meet nurserymen and women like Ben and Jo from Jardim Seco, Marcia of Verdes Pardal, Miguel Cotton of Pomar dos Sabores and home gardeners like Harriet Bode and Sue Finlay. Buy direct from the growers, who can explain how to grow all their plants successfully. You may also like to join OGten Net a burgeoning plant association in which gardeners learn from each other. Interested in bulbs? Uli representing the Pacific Bulb Society will be there to talk bulbs with you.
With over twenty plant stalls there is a lot get excited about.
Free admission