Wildflower Festival
Overview — Volunteer – Art in Nature — Music — Guided Walks — Booths & Vendors — Sponsors
Wildflower & Music Festival
Sunday, May 20, 2012
10 am to 5 pm
Parking is free on festival day.
Suggested donation $5 per person, children under 12 free.
Please leave your dogs at home!
Set aside Sunday, May 20th for a day of wildflowers, music, food, crafts, and microscopes! You don’t have to be a plant expert to love our upcoming Wildflower & Music Festival. The festival is loaded with fun things to do for everyone in the family. As many as three to four hundred species of wildflowers will be on display, from Anemones to Vancouveria! Collected and organized for attendees to get a close look, top botanists of the region will be on hand to answer questions. For an even closer look, guests can use on-site microscopes. Nectar glands at the base of the petals really glisten at 100X magnification!
Bring your dancing shoes, because there will be great live music to amplify this festive frolic in the meadow. Come shop for a wide variety of plants, baked goods, and crafts at the wide array of vendor booths, with proceeds supporting the Arboretum’s work in habitat restoration and environmental education. A whole tent full of kids’ activities keeps even the tiny ones entertained!
Bring the entire family (except the dog) to enjoy the festival as well as explore nearby nature trails. Expert nature guides will weave folks through the trails, providing more information about the Arboretum’s ecology and history.
Plant Sale
Did you know that our Plant Sale booth is fueled entirely by donations? Swing by the Arboretum on Saturday, May 19th to drop off native plants, perennials, houseplants, flowering plants, or any other potted-up greenery that is looking for a home–as long as it’s not an invasive species*, of course. The Wildflower Festival is not only a great event for educating the community about the wonders of the outdoors, but it’s one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for Mount Pisgah Arboretum. We couldn’t keep our trail maintenance, environmental education, and habitat restoration programs going without your help!
*Link to list of invasive species for our region.
Music
Bring your dancing shoes! We’ve got a great music lineup for you…
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10:00 – The Kindreds The Kindreds play music rooted in Americana,and describe themselves as “Acoustic country folk flavored with a dash of bluegrass.” |
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11:00 – Satori Bob *LAST MINUTE CHANGE* Arboretum favorites, Satori Bob will be taking the 11 o’clock hour performance at the festival! Satori Bob’s appeal has the ability to cross many boundaries with songs ranging from gentle acoustic pieces to hard to ignore social commentary. |
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Noon – Betty & the Boy Winners of 2011′s Eugene Next Big Thing competition, Betty, Josh (the boy), Nancy, Michelle and Jon defy simple categorization. Though the quartet’s string-laden melodies occasionally anchor them in the territories of folk, bluegrass, or minimalist rock, they’re more at home in the cracks in-between. They’re the show not to miss! |
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1:00 – Concrete Loveseat Do you like jazz? We know we do! This six-piece jazz ensemble will bowl you over with their own blend of unique talent and toe-tapping rhythms. |
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2:00 – Bad Mitten Orchestre Bad Mitten Orchestre’s music, often described as “Lyrical Folk Cabaret”, features a blend of Americana and Gypsy roots combined with an energy all its own, created by the collective personalities of the band’s members. This five-piece group are a perfect pairing for a day full of wildflowers and sunshine! |
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3:00 – Side of Beets This three-part band is a side project of a few members of the well known Sugar Beets. Their folksy warm music will put a smile on your face and a bounce in your step! |
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4:00 – Kudana Kudana has been entertaining crowds throughout the Pacific Northwest with Marimba music for over thirty years. Kudana means to love one another translated from the Shona language of Zimbabwe. This Marimba band is the perfect end to the Wildflower Festival. |
Booths
Whether you’re hungry for lunch, looking for something pretty, eager to improve your garden, or out to learn more about our local non-profits, the Wildflower Festival has got the booths for you! Our vendors will include…
Food:
Bates Steak House
Cafe Mam
Chateau Lorane
Hideaway Bakery
Oriental Village
Townshends Tea
Viva Vegetarian
Plants:
Buggy Crazy
Doak Creek Farms
Fern Ridge Gardens
Fox Hollow Nursery
Friends of Buford Park
Garden of Eaton
NW Native Trees
Pierce Street Gardens
White Oak Nursery
Art:
Charting Nature
Dragonfly Creations
Fridays at the Farm
Headwaters Photography
Patricia Donahue Basketry
Renae Kowitz Ceramics
Sweet Pea Silks
Timeless Arts
Wear Me Jewels
Wooden Apple Woodturning
Non-profits:
Cascadia Wildlands
Eugene Natural History Society
Friends of Buford Park
Friends of Trees
Forest Web
Lane County Master Gardeners
Lost Valley Education Center
North America Butterfly Association
Native Plant Society of Oregon-Emerald Chapter
Nearby Nature
Northwest Youth Corps
Sierra Club
Whole Earth Nature School
WREN
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Guided Walks
Join some delightful experts on the natural history of Mount Pisgah for guided walks during the Wildflower & Music Festival! This is a great opportun
ity to learn about the plants, animals, and other wild creatures that abound along the trails.
1pm Dave Wagner
2pm Bruce Newhouse
3pm Friend of Buford Park (A walk to the south meadow.)
Volunteer
Mount Pisgah Arboretum’s annual Wildflower & Music Festival is made possible by a wonderful group of volunteers. Do you have a couple hours to share? Here is an overview of the many roles available!
Before the Festival:
* Put up posters around town to promote the event. (This has already begun, call 541-747-3817 to sign up for one of the poster routes still available.)
* Help set up booths and tables on Saturday, May 19th.
* Decorate the booths and entryway on Saturday, May 19–bring your creative ideas!
* Set up the spread of donated food for all the Saturday volunteers.
* Cook up some wonderful treats for the bake sale! (We can’t take anything that needs refrigeration, such as custards or whipped cream, but cookies, brownies, cupcakes, muffins, breads are all perfect–why not host a baking party with your friends? Bring all contributions to the booth on the day of the festival)
* Donate plants for the plant sale! (We can’t accept invasive species; click here for the invasive species list.)
On Festival Day:
* Keeping the traffic flowing smoothly in the parking lots–a great job for a group or a club.
* Greeting visitors, renewing people’s memberships, collecting donations, counting heads and stamping hands as folks first come into the festival.
* Signing in your fellow volunteers and showing them how to get to their positions.
* Selling festival t-shirts & posters, nature books & field guides, and monitoring the free raffle.
* Leading nature crafts for kids, helping children use microscopes, and handing out goodies as the “pocket lady.”
* The ever-popular plant sale! Answering questions as folks shop for plants; adding up purchases or taking money as a cashier; supervising the plant holding booth; and helping folks carry plants out to their cars.
* Delicious bake sale! Arrange and sell all the donated baked goods, or add up the totals and make change.
After the Festival:
* Take down canopies and tables on Monday, May 21.
Please call Rainee at 541-747-3817 or email mtpisgah@efn.org to find out more or to sign up for your position. Volunteers get free entrance to the festival, a souvenir poster, and the fun of working with a great team to host one of the best parties springtime has to offer!
Co-hosts and Sponsors
The Wildflower Festival is co-hosted by the Native Plant Society of Oregon and Lane Community College.
A special thanks to our festival sponsors:
