• Editor’s Note: Got a big event coming up that you’d like to tell Kane County about? Email a press release with photos to Kane County Connects Editor Rick Nagel for consideration as an article on the Kane County Connects web page and newsletter.

Aurora Gardener’s Plant Sale kicks off the planting season May 17, with a big-name radio personality and a farmer’s-market-style sale that features over 80 vendors.

Sponsored by the Fox Valley Garden Club, the can’t-miss event for gardeners runs rain or shine from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 17, at the Aurora Transportation Center, 233 N. Broadway.

The sale features an array of plants, flowers, vegetable plants, garden art and gardening-related items. For the 19th year the Fox Valley Garden Club will also showcase plants from member’s gardens, as well as annuals and perennials from local nurseries. Proceeds from the sale, help fund local horticultural community projects.

Chicago radio personality and Master Gardener Mike Nowak will entertain and inform in a gardening talk followed by a meet and greet, starting at 9 a.m.

Admission and parking are free. For more information or for vendor space, visit www.foxvalleygardenclub.com.

MIKE NOWAK BIO

Mike Nowak is host of the “The Mike Nowak Show,” Sundays from 9 to 11am on Chicago’s Progressive Talk, WCPT 820AM and 92.5, 92.7 and 99.9 FM. for a decade before coming to WCPT, he was the host of WGN Radio’s “Let’s Talk Gardening.”

In 2012 and 2013, he and Jennifer Brennan from Chalet Nursery in Wilmette hosted 18 TV gardening and cooking programs called “Dig In Chicago, which aired on WCIU’s “U Too” channel and on Comcast Network. He has also appeared on WGN-TV Channel 9, CBS 2 Chicago and the DIY Network. Mike is a writer and award-winning columnist for Chicagoland Gardening Magazine. In January of 2014, eCycle Best.com named him one of the “Top 5 Male Green Talk Show Hosts on Radio.”

The April, 2011 issue of Garden Design Magazine listed Mike’s show as one of five radio programs “we’re listening to.”

Mike is a writer and award-winning columnist for Chicagoland Gardening Magazine, as well as an Illinois Master Gardener and Openlands TreeKeeper. In 2002, he co-founded the Midwest Ecological Landscape Alliance and served as MELA’s president for four years. He is currently president of the not-for-profit Chicago Recycling Coalition.