The
Landis Valley Museum has been organizing a garden festival for the past twenty years: The Herb & Garden Faire has developed into one of the largest horticultural exhibition/fairs on the East Coast.
Driving past the sprawling fields of wheat and black soil, one reaches the famous
Landis Valley Museum. Considering the Museum times the Faire at the peak of the plant mania season, all nurseries, gardening clubs and farm
museums are eager to offload the produce. This heavy supply ensures low prices for all buyers. Fair prices and fresh plants (in top-notch shape) attract garden-maniacs from far and wide. The Weathervane Museum Store offers ancillary products.
The brochure invites all gardening enthusiasts to visit this unique outdoor marketplace in the fresh spring air. Not only are there heirloom, native and exotic plants on sale & display, but also books, gifts, tools and
art inspired by the garden. Other specialties one can find here include Bonsai plants, aquatic gardening supplies, crafts,
gourmet food items, herbal products and handmade candles & soaps. From the widest variety of dwarf plants to 5-foot tall safflowers with an unbelievably long blooming period; there are few things about the Faire that wouldn't excite green-thumbers.
Some of the most exotic plants like Japanese maples and Nicotiana sylvestris are available for the true garden aficionado. Not only is there are wide range of plants and vegetable, but different types of each plant and vegetable as well. For example, the 2008 Faire had German strawberry tomatoes, Reisentraube and Aunt Ruby's German Greens amongst other varieties of tomatoes. The Museum also organizes The Heirloom Seed project to promote and popularize old-fashioned & historic plants & seeds, like Heirloom roses. Respectable horticulturists and scientists are invited to deliver speeches. In 2008, Dr. Irwin Richman and Barbara Ellis shared their expertise and the secrets of their green thumbs with attendees.
