The Kimmswick Daylily Plant Sale is celebrating its silver anniversary.
The 25th annual sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the garden of Carroll Wrather, 6005 Fourth St.
Wrather, 88, has lived in Kimmswick for the last 64 years, Kimmswick Visitor Center manager Valerie Meyers said. Proceeds from the sale benefits the visitor center, 314 Market St.
“It is amazing,” Meyers said of the event’s 25th anniversary. “We call (Wrather) our saint at the visitor center. He not only does the daylily sale, but he also cuts out our Reader’s Digest letter books and handmakes pens and keychains that we sell. I don’t know what we would do without him.”
Meyers said she has worked at the last 16 sales, and she has seen the number of customers triple during that time.
She said Wrather started holding the annual sale because of his love of flowers and desire to contribute to the visitor center.
“It started out as a small fundraiser for the visitor center, and it has grown,” Meyers said. “I don’t think he ever dreamed it would get this big. It has grown over the years.”
She said plant shoppers should try to arrive early because the event typically is sold out between noon and 1 p.m. with hundreds of shoppers typically attending the sale.
Meyers said there will be more than 1,200 freshly dug and bagged plants of more than 100 varieties for sale. Most plants cost between $3 and $5, but there also will be higher grade plants available for $15.
She said the money is used to cover payroll, utility fees and other operation costs, and the annual event typically raises about $3,000.
“It helps keep our doors open,” Meyers said.
“People come because he has such a beautiful selection of flowers,” she said. “These are flowers you can’t find at nurseries or anything. It is a high-quality daylily. People come because they know Mr. Carroll does this out of love, and because he has such a great selection of daylilies.”
Meyers said Wrather looks forward to the annual sale.
“He loves to see the people who come back every year and have conversations with them,” she said. “We have a big base of repeat customers, and their yards are just filled with his daylilies.”
Meyers said the sale is fun to attend.
“Everybody is happy to be there and excited to get their daylilies,” she said. “We really have a good time with it.”