WEEKS BAY, Ala. — It’s enough to make your average backyard gardener drool. Imagine flats and flats of annuals and perennials, buckets of bushes and shrubs. Now imagine that they are all selected and grown here in lower Alabama, and will do well in this area. Add plenty of trained volunteers who are willing to share their knowledge with you.

The best part is that you don’t have to dream. The Baldwin County Master Gardeners will hold a plant sale April 1 through April 3, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Safe Harbor at Weeks Bay. This is across U.S. Highway 98 from the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. There will be plenty of signs to direct visitors.

For Carol Rhodes, this year’s plant sale will be one of the retired nurse’s first as a Master Gardner.

The Elsanor resident chose to become a Master Gardener last year (MGs have to take numerous training classes and give 40 hours of service to the community each year) because “of all the people and the knowledge. I wanted to grow a more productive vegetable garden.”

She says there will be a “wide variety” of plants at the sale — everything from annuals to shade- and sun-loving plants.”

Rhodes is part of a team of MGs who go to the South Baldwin Center for Technology in Robertsdale to help out in the Agriscience Department.

“We help them propagate new plants and transfer plants from one greenhouse to the next,” she said.

The classes are taught by SBCT agriscience teacher Jeff Kelley. The school, at 19200 Carolina Street, will be holding its own plant sale of plants raised by students April 1 and April 2. The times are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. April 1, and 7-10 a.m. on April 2. Flats of 36 annuals at the school sale will be $8. Gallon perennials are $4.

The Master Gardeners also have a help line at 877-252-4769, Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Jimmie Von Valkenburgh, a Gulf Shores resident a Master Gardener and a three-year board member, said the MG program is “really there to help the ACES (Alabama Cooperative Extension Service) program. We are really trained to be volunteer gardeners. We really give back to the community.”

As a former teacher, she enjoys the teaching aspect of the MG program.

“I was raised on farms in Monroe and Conecuh counties,” she said. “The students learn a lot with Mr. Kelley.

“I have ferns and citrus trees,” she said. She noted the Gulf Shores Garden Club, of which she is a member, visits her property to learn about growing those plants. She’s also part of a group of Master Gardeners who is helping to maintain and restore the gardens of the Swift-Coles home in Bon Secour.