With Markyate Plant Sale returning for a 22nd year in May, organiser Ian Bradley wrote a short piece celebrating their success over the last 21 years as well as their team of fantastic volunteers. Thank you so much for all the support you have given The Hospice of St Francis and we look forward to another fantastic sale:
"In 1997 the annual Markyate Plant Sale, which had proceeded quite informally for several years not accounting in a formal way but bringing a small bag of cash along to the Hospice shortly after the ‘event’, decided to establish itself on a more formal basis and began to account for its income. Since that time they have held 21 sales and donated £83,568 to the Hospice.
The next landmark came in at the millennium in 2000 when Ian Bradley spent a day at the Hospice in Shrublands Road, at the invitation of the then Medical Director, Ros Taylor. As a result he wrote a piece for Markyate Monthly which contained the following: ‘Later, over lunch, I'm telling Leslie about the Hospice Plant Sale at the beginning of June when out of the blue he tells me that he was a nurseryman and offers to let me in on a trade source of germinated seedlings. "Four weeks from plug to plant"' he assures me.’ And so was born the Modern Plant Sale.
We now buy over 7000 plugs, which are potted and grown on at Rothamsted Research (to whom very many thanks) to enable us to put a galaxy of colour and variety before our customers.
This can only happen through the enthusiasm and hard work of our large team of volunteers. Some of whom are in this picture taken at last year’s event.
This year The Markyate Plant Sale will be open for business at 10am on 26th May at 64 High Street, Markyate."
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