Looking to beautify your surroundings this spring? Then the Sportsman Lake Wildflower Garden is the place to be — or will be on March 25. That’s the date of this year’s annual native azaleas and wildflowers sale, a chance to affordably score a wide variety of Alabama native azaleas and other outdoor perennials so they’re ready to bloom by the time spring officially arrives.

Sponsored by the Cullman Master Gardeners and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, the sale serves as a fundraiser for the Cullman-based gardening group. Formerly hosted by the Cullman Native Plant Society, the sale lapsed for the past three years through the COVID-19 pandemic, reemerging this year in fresh hands.

The Master Gardeners’ involvement makes the sale’s Sportsman Lake setting especially opportune: Beginning last year, the group has waged an ambitious effort to rehabilitate the park’s 3.5-acre Wildflower Garden, which is located just beyond the gate to the park’s pavilion area and signaled by a can’t-miss red Torii-style wooden gateway.

The idea, says Master Gardener Brad Mitchell, is to raise local awareness of one of the park’s prettiest amenities, all while raising funds that help the group continue their campaign to reclaim its overgrown areas while adding new features.

“When we first started working at the lake, there there would be people out walking, and they’d stop by and ask, ‘What are you doing?’” says Mitchell. We’d tell them, ‘We’re revitalizing the Wildflower Garden,’ and they’d respond — ‘There’s a Wildflower Garden out here?!’

“We’re really excited for people to know about it, because we’re hoping not only to raise awareness of the Master Gardeners and what they do, but also create a wider community awareness of the Wildflower Garden itself,” says Mitchell. “Plus, this is a great opportunity for folks to buy wildflowers that can increase their natural habitats on their own properties, whether it’s for butterflies, bees or whatever. All of the plants that we’re selling are perennial types, too — so it’s not a one-and-done effort. If you buy a plant at the wildflower sale, it’ll still be around next year.”

Both the plants on sale and the garden itself should be showing off a few springtime blooms by the sale’s March 25th arrival, coming only days after the start of the new season. In addition to native Alabama azaleas, buyers also can choose from a long list of perennial wild plants including ferns, butterfly milkweed, coreopsis, cosmos bee balm, Shasta daisy, purple coneflowers and much more.

Though it’s the sale’s first outing since COVID-19 put a temporary stop to the tradition, last week’s spate of stormy weather almost scuttled the Master Gardeners’ carefully-laid plans. “When that storm came through on Friday, devastation hit,” joked Mitchell, who’s been nurturing from seed, at his own greenhouse, most of the plants that’ll be on offer at the park on March 25.

“I had the plants in this big rack, and the winds turned that thing upside down,” he explained. “We had to rally the Master Gardeners to come over and help re-pot all of them. The good news, though, is that the plants that survived are strong and healthy. We were able to save probably 500 or so plants, and ended up losing maybe 50 or 60. By the time we got it all back together, the plants thankfully looked pretty good.”

This year’s Native azaleas and wildflower sale will take place on Saturday, March 25 at the Wildflower Garden at Sportsman Lake Park from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. Use the occasion to rediscover the Wildflower Garden (and the improvements the Master Gardeners are still making), while scoring a one-stop solution for your beautification plans this spring.