Annual Plant Sale Marks Historical Society’s First In-Person Event in More Than a Year

The Centre County Historical Society will welcome guests back this weekend for its first in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year. 

The 26th Annual Plant Celebration & Garden Sale takes place 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday at Centre Furnace Mansion, 1001 E. College Ave.

“We’ve been dealing with the pandemic for a year now and I think people are in the groove of wearing masks and handling social distancing as much as possible, but also many people, especially those in higher-risk categories, have their vaccine now, those that want them,” says Mary Sorenson, executive director of the Centre County Historical Society. “So we felt that, with all that, and also given that the event is outdoors, it would be relatively safe.” 

Unlike in past years, the event will not feature a food vendor and there will be no open house at the mansion, but attendees are invited to enjoy self-guided tours around the grounds and gardens. 

“We will require guests, visitors, volunteers and vendors to follow guidelines for masking and social distancing,” Sorenson adds. “We’ll be setting vendor tables and tents apart a little more, so people can get around safely.”

The event offers locally-grown, native and non-native plants — including herbs, annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs — for sale from both regional growers and the Centre Furnace Mansion Garden. Beyond the eight vendors this year’s event features, the sale also will host the Penn State Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners of Centre County, who will be available to answer gardening questions and even identify plant samples. 

“Between our vendors and the Centre Furnace Mansion Gardeners and their plants they’ve been potting up, there’ll be a lot of plants. It’s hard to say just how many, but I’d say thousands for sure,” Sorenson says. “With our gardeners in particular, it could be up to 400. That’s not as much as in year’s past, but we’ve had a cold spring and so it’s been difficult to get out there and get things potted up how we have in the past.” 

Proceeds from the plant sale go toward upkeep for the gardens and grounds at both Centre Furnace Mansion and Boogersburg School.

While attending the sale, interested visitors will also get a look at the current, exterior restoration work being done at the mansion. Restoration work began April 19 and includes repairs and replacements for the mansion’s roof and porch areas. 

Attendees are advised to bring cash and checks (though credit cards will be accepted as needed). Parking is available on the mansion’s grass lot on East College Avenue. Limited parking is available in the mansion’s Porter Road lot, as well as in the parking lot behind Esber Rugs.

Sorenson says expected attendance is weather-dependent. “If it’s a rainy day, we might get 250 people. If it’s a sunny, beautiful day, we get more. I think our top year we maybe had close to 500 or so people.”

The 26th Annual Plant Celebration sale is a sign of more to come for the Centre County Historical Society, which originally planned to resume indoor tours last year, until a series of unfortunate events determined otherwise. 

“We had a waterline incident and that was right about the time we were planning to reopen on a limited basis for tours,” Sorenson explains. “When that finished up, the COVID rates were going way up in this area. Because so many of our volunteers are in that high-risk category, we just didn’t feel it was a good idea for us to open yet.”

In the meantime, the society has been hosting virtual lectures on its website, centrehistory.org, as well as posting past lectures on its YouTube page. 

“We’re hesitant to firmly plan any of our in-person activities until things get further along,” Sorenson says. “We’re looking ahead and taking that as it comes, but people can refer to our website for upcoming events… Hopefully, sometime by the mid-summer or so, we’re hoping to reopen by appointment for tours.” 

Find more information about the 26th Annual Plant Celebration sale at www.centrehistory.org/plant-celebration.