The free Daylily Festival and Garden Show will be held May 31, 8:30 a.m. until 3 p.m., in downtown Abbeville’s Magdalene Square.
More than 70 vendors will offer a variety of horticultural items, from daylilies to gardening supplies and tools.
The event is presented by the Abbeville Main Street program, Abbeville-Vermilion Chamber of Commerce and the LSU AgCenter. The Lafayette Master Gardeners, a volunteer group organized by the LSU AgCenter, will assist with the event by staffing a plant information booth in the gazebo, and by conducting a plant swap at 10:30 am.
Master Gardeners also will be available to answer plant health questions. Answering a specific question will be made easier if samples of a problem plant are brought to the clinic.
Master Gardeners will be hosting the educational speaker presentations in the nearby Abbeville Historical and Cultural Center.
The first educational talk is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on growing palms in south Louisiana by Master Gardener, Joe Baucum of New Orleans. Baucum has been an active Master Gardener since 1998 and is currently treasurer of Master Gardeners of Greater New Orleans and president of the New Orleans area Better Swamps and Garden Club. He recently returned from Costa Rica where he attended the International Palm Society biennial meeting and tour.
A presentation at 11 a.m. will be for children by Master Gardener Glenda Balliviero entitled, “What is the Reason for a flower?” She has been active in several gardening organizations such as the Louisiana Society for Horticulture Research, the Lafayette Garden Club and Lafayette Master Gardeners She chairs the Children's Garden which she developed 4 years ago at the Master Gardener demonstration gardens at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Ira Nelson Horticulture Center in Lafayette.
The presentations wrap up at 12:15 a.m. with awards for 4-H students who participated in the Vermilion Parish 4-H Garden Contest.
For more information about the event, call (337) 893-2491 or (337) 898-4335.