As volunteers turn out on Saturday for the May cleanup, once again Ironton In Bloom members will have their annual plant sale, just in time for Mother’s Day.

“People came to us after the first year for Ironton In Bloom and said they would like to have some of the flowers we had planted to put in their yards,” Carol Allen of IIB said. “That gave us the idea.”

Today the first shipment of flowers that will be planted in hanging baskets and containers downtown is expected at the Ironton Farmers Market.

“Three of us went to Imel’s greenhouse and looked at all the flowers available,” she said. “We made choices. We want a flat of this and a flat of that.”

Downtown flowers will be pink and purple while the containers around St. Mary’s Medical Center Ironton will feature red dragon begonias.

“That makes a different entrance into the city than the one we have on Park Avenue,” Allen said.

IIB is also using more grasses at the spray park instead of ferns.

“They are very hardy and don’t give off a lot of flower blossoms to get caught in the drains and get clogged up,” she said. “We tried ferns but had mixed luck and decided to try grasses.”

The plant sale is one of the major fundraisers for IIB bringing in on average $1,000 from the day.

The sale will be from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. at the parking lot at Second and Vernon streets. Among the flowers available will be petunias, geraniums, impatiens, angel wing begonias, marigold, snapdragons, zinnias, ferns and verbenas. There will also be large and small hanging baskets and round and square mixed pots.