25th annual Camas Plant & Garden Fair returns to downtown Camas this Saturday

The 25th annual Camas Plant and Garden Fair will take over downtown Camas this weekend, with a mix of plants, vegetable starts, trees, herbs, garden art, flowers, gardening experts, live music and child-friendly activities.

Held the day before Mother’s Day, the annual fair is one of the largest of its kind in Clark County and known to draw hundreds of visitors, rain or shine. This year’s fair will take place from from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, May 11, throughout the streets of historic downtown Camas.

“It’s huge,” Eloyce O’Connor, co-owner of the Brush Prairie-based Garden Delights Herb Farm, said of the fair. “Camas has the largest plant sale, aside from the Master Gardeners’ sale at the Heritage Farm … and the people are there to buy plants.”

O’Connor, along with her daughter and business partner, Erin Harwood, has been a vendor at the Camas Plant and Garden Fair for the past decade.

“It’s nice. Downtown Camas has this kind of cozy community, small-town feel, and people come no matter what,” Harwood said, remembering a particularly rainy year when she and her mother thought the fair might be negatively impacted by the weather. “We had rubber boots and raincoats on, and thought it was going to be horrible, but people came anyway.”

O’Connor and Harwood have been growing herbs in the Hockinson area since 2005, and currently grow around 100 different types of herbs. Their Garden Delights Herb Farm sells fresh and dried herbs, a dozen culinary herb blends, various herb salts and teas, herbal bath and body products and even an array of herbal flea products for furry family members. Though the mother-daughter team sells the majority of their products through their website (gardendelightsfarm.com) and at local stores such as Urban Basics in Vancouver, they also attend a few plant and garden fairs each year and offer “porch pickups” at the farm for local customers who have purchased products online.

Harwood, a community herbalist who earned her master’s degree in environmental science from Portland State University, also runs her own business, Plant Magic with Erin, where she offers classes and plant walks dedicated to her love of herbs and herbal remedies.

Both Harwood and O’Connor — who have taught several herb-related classes at the Camas Public Library — will be on hand during the May 11 Camas Plant and Garden Fair to talk with visitors about growing, harvesting, preserving and utilizing herbs throughout the year.

Though many visitors to the Camas plant fair already have a good idea of which herbs they might want to grow, O’Connor said it’s always fun to talk with people about their gardens and help them find new or different herbs.

“We have discussions about what herbs might work … and help them put together what they’re looking for,” O’Connor said. “And we always have a little segment of people who are really new to herbs, so we tell them about some really great herbs that are easy to grow.”

LIke the mother-daughter duo from Garden Delights, Curtis said she enjoys attending downtown Camas events as a vendor.

“This will be our first year to show at the Plant and Garden Fair,” Curtis said. “I’m really looking forward to it. … I love our connections to Camas. We have a great relationship with Arktana and have come there for First Friday events. And we have participated several times in the Vintage and Art Fair, which is a great blend of art and storied items, so that has been really fun.”

Curtis — who named Belle Flower Farm for her grandmother, Laura Belle, who opened her own flower shop, Highland Florist, in Vancouver in the 1950s — grew up steeped in flowers and beauty.

“Belle Flower Farm is a nod to childhood memories playing in (Laura Belle’s) garden, pretending to marry under the rose arbor and looking for treasures in the greenhouse,” Curtis states on her business website.

She has taken her love of gardening and combined it with a background in art and design to form Belle Flower Farm.

“We do a lot of pop-ups throughout the community, at wineries and markets, and I try to never do the same thing twice,” Curtis said when asked what type of products and floral arrangements Camas shoppers might find at her booth on May 11. “We’ll have things that can help style a back porch for a party or a front porch for a spring gathering — loads of plants and flowers and garden accessories. And I’m planning to bring new plant markers to Camas. … We’ll have succulents and olive topiaries — things that are super easy to care for and that can be brought out to (help decorate) a seating area.”

Curtis said she also loves the educational piece of her business.

“We offer garden consultations. Sometimes it helps to have someone walk through and see your garden with fresh eyes,” Curtis said. “To see how you use your space and what you would like to get from your garden.”

For people planning to attend the May 11 plant and garden fair in downtown Camas, Curtis recommends taking photos ahead of time.

“If you’re working on a particular part of your garden, take a couple photos on your phone and — maybe of the front porch or vegetable garden or whatever you’d like to work on,” Curtis said. “Then, you can reference the photos when you’re at the fair, talking to the vendors.”

The 25th annual Camas Plant and Garden Fair will feature dozens of vendors, including 15 new vendors, and 20 “vendor experts,” and a wide variety of plants, plant starts and garden accessories.

The vendor expert booths will feature “yellow sun” signs and an expert vendor list can be found online at cwplantfair.org/vendors. Included on the list of vendor experts is:

Downtown Camas’ own EatWell Camas, which will provide community gardening information and children’s activities, as well as information about the Olla watering systems;

• The Fort Vancouver Rose Society, which will provide education about caring for and pruning rose bushes;

• The Washougal-based Good Year Farm, which specializes in native Pacific Northwest plants and will discuss how to grow and care for plant species such as camas, trillium and western columbine.

• Lacamas Lavender Farm, with information about growing lavender plants and other herbs, succulents, vegetable starts and container gardens;