How The Garden Grows
Events, memberships and educational programming all bring community awareness to the Garden and help it flourish and grow. Out of approximately 90 rental events a year, most are weddings. Couples can choose from several picturesque outdoor areas or an inside option, the beautiful Conservatory. The Peoria Zoo’s Africa Exhibit opened directly across from Luthy Botanical Garden in 2009. After a Garden wedding, the Zoo’s Zambezi Lodge offers a unique and convenient option for a reception.
In addition to flower shows, the Garden has several seasonal and holiday events that have become long-time traditions in the area. The Spring and June Plant Sales always draw a big crowd looking for plants they may not find elsewhere. Some special events meld art and music with the Garden setting or inside the Conservatory. These include Wine & Roses (celebrating Valentine’s Day), Rhapsody in Bloom Arts Festival (the last weekend in June), Rhythm in the Rainforest (August) and Jinglin’ Jazz (early December). Some are family events and others are age 21 and over.
Garden memberships are available on several levels and come with many benefits including a subscription to the quarterly newsletter, discounts on classes and Garden Shop purchases, reduced admission to Garden events and more. As an expert source of information on all things horticultural, the Garden offers a variety of classes, walks and tours every season. The popular Landscape Design Series, five to six classes on garden and landscape design for the home gardener, fills up early every February. For students, the Garden offers a great lineup of environmental education programming that significantly contributes to an understanding and appreciation of plants and the outdoors. Programs are matched with the Illinois State Goals for science to facilitate learning and enhance science curriculums. Programs are geared for grades preschool through 12.
In April 2011, Luthy Botanical Garden was awarded a $10,000 grant by the National Recreation and Park Association’s (NRPR’s) Grow Your Park program to support the Garden’s new community garden program. The program was developed through partnership with Proctor Center, Gifts in the Moment educators, dietetic interns from OSF Healthcare and Bradley University, plus the Luthy Botanical Garden staff. The NRPR Grow Your Park program supports park and recreation agencies in creating and expanding community garden operations and activities, with a goal of increasing participation among children and teens. These public growing spaces teach children about food origin, proper nutrition, teamwork and hands-on skills, while providing intergenerational connections. Manager Bob Streitmatter says the grant was used to “enhance two garden locations with soil amendments, garden tools, compost bins and improved water access. Using resources from Project Learning Tree, a nature-based curriculum from the American Forest Foundation, as a starting point, we will bring the partners together to further develop the curriculum and schedule garden classes/activities, field trips and cooking nutrition classes.”
As one of Peoria’s oldest landmarks, Luthy Botanical Garden has always been a source of enjoyment, inspiration and education, as it still is today, but it is also continually evolving to reflect community needs in the 21st century.
Read more about this topic: George L. Luthy Memorial Botanical Garden
Famous quotes containing the words garden and/or grows:
“The male has been persuaded to assume a certain onerous and disagreeable rôle with the promise of rewards—material and psychological. Women may in the first place even have put it into his head. BE A MAN! may have been, metaphorically, what Eve uttered at the critical moment in the Garden of Eden.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“You may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)