Plant and craft fair just in time for spring

Though I write this with some trepidation, I think it may finally be safe to plant flowers.

Nature has bloomed a little late this year, but the Rolling Meadows Hometown Plant and Craft Sale is right on time.

The seventh annual event is from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 17 at the old public works building, 3200 Central Road.

The "hometown" part means residents bring plant divisions from their yards, set up a table and sell them. "We tell them to price it reasonably," organizer Linda Blane says. "The goal is to get rid of it -- you don't want to take it home."

The Rolling Meadows Garden Club will also have flats and hanging baskets for sale, including some plants from its members' own yards and others from an area greenhouse. All are sold at competitive prices, says Blane, who has helped organized the event since its start.

I was interested to learn that compost and leaf mulch will be available to buy. Blane says it was bagged only two weeks ago and is very fresh.

Crafters will sell nature, outdoor and wildlife-themed creations. A Kids Corner will have plants and supplies for children to create a project to take home.

There's even a drive-up service so you don't have to walk your new plants to the car.

The club uses proceeds to pay for its monthly programs, but most go to charitable causes, including improving park district properties. For more details about the sale or the garden club, call (847) 818-3200 ext. 230.

About those yellow bins: A few weeks back I asked for your ideas on what to do with the yellow recycling bins the city is no longer using.

Resident Kimberly Balles offers a good one. "We have used the bins in the past to make snow forts by packing snow into them and turning them upside down, much like you would do when making sand castles with buckets," she wrote in a e-mail.

"It was always fun to watch my husband and my son, now 22, go in the back yard and put together a fort."

Another resident is hoping to collect bins to add to his container garden.

"The nice thing about it is the holes in the bottom prove excellent for drainage without the need for rocks," says Brett Gratton, who has lived most of his life in Rolling Meadows.

Gratton even placed a sign in the boulevard along Owl Drive last week asking people to leave their bins for him. No takers yet, he says.

If you have an old bin for him, drop it on his driveway at 3501 Kingfisher Lane or call him at (847) 368-8724.