Warren prepares for plant sale

WARREN–Warren agriculture teacher Sydney Groen works diligently for two or more hours every day tending to flowers planted by her horticulture students and watering each plant.

On a typical school day, eight students would be in the Warren High School greenhouse preparing plants for the annual Warren FFA plant sale, now in its third year.

The FFA plant sale at Warren normally begins on the first Saturday in May.

“The past two years we have had between 20 to 30 people lined up outside our doors waiting to come in,” said Groen. “It is like Black Friday during that first day; it’s crazy. It will be a lot different going online this year.”

In a typical school year, Warren’s agriculture department orders plugs with other agriculture departments from high schools around the region.

In fall, students in Groen’s horticulture class learn about the basics of the plant, and by the time the spring semester begins, students are busy working in the greenhouse.

“In the spring we are in here every day,” said Groen. “They are in here planting the plugs, planting the seeds and the kids are in charge of watering, deadheading the flowers and we grow them until the first weekend in May.”

Typically, the horticulture class opens the sale up to staff and FFA alumni first and then begins the public sale the first Saturday in May. One of the changes this year is that there will be no vegetables and only basil for herbs due to the lack of students working in late spring. The students’ last day working in the greenhouse was on March 16.

Since then, Groen has taken on the work and is preparing the plants for their public unveiling.

Due to the new online component of the sale, Groen has had to take pictures of every plant and upload the pictures to the website.

“Putting a website together for the plant sale is a whole new thing for me, too,” said Groen.

Groen said she is supposed to be the only one in the greenhouse due to coronavirus restrictions and with the large quantity of flowers at the greenhouse, the task can become overwhelming at times.

“My horticulture class only has eight students in it, but they are all hard workers. Something that typically takes them one class period takes me two days,” said Groen. “It is a whole different ball game.”

Not only does Groen’s class work on the greenhouse but they also plant baskets for the village to place around town. This is likely another task Groen will have to accomplish without the help of her horticulture class.

Along with tending to the plants daily, Groen is also managing her online classrooms and adjusting the learning for her horticulture students who would typically be participating in hands-on learning in the greenhouse.

Groen has students working on different projects such as a discussion on when the plant sale should be and they’ve also put baskets together based on individual pictures of plants.

“They have still made the decisions, but they are all very sad that they can’t be in here,” said Groen. “That first week (of the school closure), I got a lot of messages asking if I was sure that they can’t be here and that they would rather be here. I told them I want them here, too.”

The link for the plant sale will be available to the public Saturday, May 2, at noon. The link will be available on the Warren FFA Facebook page and the school website.

Warren FFA will have bedding plants in individual pots or six cell packs, hanging baskets and annuals available. Once the order is placed, plant buyers will have to choose a date to pick up items from the greenhouse: Tuesdays or Thursdays, 3-5 p.m. or Saturdays 8:30-10:30 a.m. Payments must be exact amounts via check or credit card. Payments must be made at time of pick up.