WICKER PARK — Love the volunteer-maintained gardens in Wicker Park's namesake park?
Profits from this weekend's annual Wicker Park Garden Club Plant Sale — offering vegetables, herbs, flowering annuals, hanging baskets and a "Plant and Grow" area for kids — will go toward keeping the 10,000 square-foot gardens going strong.
Presented in partnership with the Chicago Park District, the sale is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1425 N. Damen Ave. If it rains, the sale will move inside the field house gym.
On both days, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., there will be a free crafts tent for children to design and decorate pots that can be planted with lettuce or basil for a Mother's Day gift.
Sale proceeds are used to buy new plants for the park's gardens and decorative urns surrounding the fountain in the center of the park, as well as pay speakers who lead the club's lectures series.
Volunteers who work a three-hour shift will get a 10 percent discount on their own plant buys; several slots are filled but there are a few times, especially for set up and tear down on Sunday. Sign up online to volunteer.
Doug Wood, the events and volunteer coordinator for the Wicker Park Advisory Club and a longtime member of the garden club, said the sale features "plants that perform well in Chicago" and each plant is personally hand-picked by the Wicker Park Garden Club members.
Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) is scheduled to set-up a satellite office at the sale sometime after 12 p.m. on Saturday, Wood said.
