Friday, July 31, 2009

Featured Garden Spotlight: Vegetable Garden

For this week’s Featured Garden, I am highlighting our new Vegetable Garden. This Garden is located directly above where the Children’s Adventure Garden is under construction. Dan Simpson, a horticulture student with the Larry Selland College of Applied Technology, helped to design and construct this Garden. Dan and the Garden Horticultural Staff worked together to create a functional, but beautiful garden. No small task as the the Vegetable Garden needed to incorporate a 2,000 square foot pumpkin patch and enough bed space to hold over 1,000 annuals that are planted during the Flower Power school field trip.
Stroll through the beds and be surrounded by a rainbow of colors – yellow and orange marigolds, burgundy amaranth, pink love-lies-bleeding, yellow pumpkin blossoms, green corn stalks and much more!
The beds bursting with marigolds were planted by Elementary School children who attended the Flower Power school field trip this past spring.

A multitude of pumpkin plants are being carefully tended in anticipation of local preschool students visiting our pumpkin patch and selecting a pumpkin in October during our ‘Scarecrow Stroll’.
On your next visit to the Garden, take a moment to venture into the upper Garden and see all of the changes that have been taken place.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Garden Celebrates 25 Years!

Welcome to the Idaho Botanical Garden’s blog! As we are entering our 25th year, we are excited to explore new ways of connecting with our members and the community – through blogging and Facebook and eventually Twitter. Please visit the blog often as we will be adding information about events, what’s cool that’s blooming in the Garden, fun animal sightings and much, much more.

With the celebration of our 25th anniversary, I am taking a moment to pause and reflect on how much the Garden has changed. The Garden started as and continues to be a private non-profit 501(c)(3) which receives no city, state, or federal tax revenue. The Garden’s success is a direct result of increased memberships, generous donations, thousands of volunteer hours, and continuous community support.

The Garden was originally part of the Old Idaho Penitentiary farm and nursery and now encompasses 33 acres leased from the state of Idaho. Nearly 15 acres are under cultivation into gardens such as the English Garden, Lewis and Clark Native Plant Garden, Western Waterwise Garden, Rose Garden and Meditation Garden. Our newest addition, the Children’s Adventure Garden, is currently under construction.

Thanks to everyone who helped to make the last 25 years a success. We look forward to the next 25 years and beyond!