Monthly Archives: July 2023

The Festive Garden

Smithsonian Folklife Festival, tomatoes; garden,

Plants and gardens take a lot of knowledge and skill to thrive, and are an important part of traditional folklife. At this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which just wrapped on July 9, both programs had gardens and a host of participating gardeners to interpret them.

What happens to those gardens once the Festival closes and the staff enters the grueling days of taking apart this enormous outdoor undertaking, you may ask? Well, having done my part during one of those days earlier this week to dismantle the gardens (and having done it many, many years in the past as well, this having been my 37th Festival!), I am here to tell you that we do our best to find good homes for all the plants.

Sometimes that is in my back, side or front yard, I have to admit. For instance, last year I snagged a fig tree from the United Arab Emirates program. It was about five feet tall, and a little worse for the wear, but once established in our front garden it was looking pretty hopeful. When spring came, however, only its bare branches remained, sad and dead looking, and we almost pulled it out. But, low and behold, it was sprouting new life from the ground up!

There are other success stories of the perennial kind lurking in our garden as well. I planted some sort of silver leaved thing requested by a flower wreath maker from the 1999 New Hampshire program, and it threatened to take over one of my flower beds. It still pops up every year here and there, as does my share of the hops we obtained for the participants from Kent, England for the 2007 Roots of Virginia Culture program.

Last year, we worked with the Earth Sangha wild plant nursery to put together a native pollinator garden for our Earth Optimism program. We had three 4’x4′ planters with a variety of natives, a number of which are in my yard now and doing amazingly well. We also got Black Eyed Susan seeds donated from a seed nursery in Pennsylvania. I threw bunches of these seeds into a sort of dead zone behind one of our raised beds, and they grew rapaciously. They are now attracting goldfinches, who perch on the flower heads and pick at the seeds.

In short, leftover Festival plants are the proverbial “gift that keeps on giving.” As is the Festival in general.

The large planter and water feature around the Ozarks program “Teaching Garden” was particularly impressive at this year’s Festival. One of the most attractive gardens we ever had! Yay, team!
I introduced Mia Jones from Springfield, Missouri, who grows microgreens, for her presentation in the Ozarks Teaching Garden one day. That’s a project for this winter now that I’ve learned the right way to do it.
In addition to the awesome planting around the Teaching Garden structure, there was a whole big planter of herbs, veggies, and foraging plants. I fear there were not many takers for most of the foraging plants, which were things most gardeners would normally be pulling out of their garden or yard like dandelions and burdocks… but they are all edible so maybe you should reconsider that action?
Who knew you could make a marigold infused simple syrup for summery drinks? Note, some of the portulaca and peppers from the kitchen planters seen here will be finding new homes in our garden (as well as a quantity of marigolds which were all over the site, so I can hopefully try this recipe at home).
As if we really need more plants in our backyard?! This is a glimpse between two of our raised beds which host the 70+ tomatoes. Hey, we like plants and especially ones that produce tomatoes!