Virginia Go Green Festival 2011

The Virginia Go Green Festival is this Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond, VA. Plant vendors will be there, along with interesting displays from various "green" organizations in VA. You will be able to purchase lunch, and there will be activities for kids. I went last year and it was fun and this year promises to be bigger. There is a $3 admission, kids are free. For more information, go to:

http://www.virginiagardening.com/virginiagardenfestival11.htm

Happy gardening!

5th Annual GoGreen VA Festival: 9//11/2010

GO GREEN Virginia!

I went to the 5th annual GoGreen Virginia festival today. Though it was a small festival, it will hopefully grow to fill the space behind the Science Museum of Virginia on Broad Street in Richmond http://www.smv.org/mapanddirections.html As you may know the SMV is in the former train station and the train platforms are still behind the museum- this is where the festival was held. The site offered a nice flat concrete surface for tables and displays and overhead awnings for shade- very nice.
One of the pleasures of going to a festival like this is meeting people who are enthusiastic about a specific area of interest. I had conversations about LEED (green) building certification, fire blight in pears, the difficulties posed by this hot and dry season for gardeners, herbs and something new to me: the Virginia Certified Master Naturalist Program (www.virginiamasternaturalist.org). The latter certifies interested individuals to be "volunteer educators, citizen scientists and stewards" of Virginia lands. Set up like the Master Gardener program, it requires 48 hours in the classroom and 40 hours of volunteer service. The website lists chapters that are forming in Virginia.
Another favorite discovery was the "How to Kill a Tree" poster from the arborists' association.
I had to laugh aloud at it- it is so true! Mulching up the sides of the tree, planting too near the house, topping the tree, failing to remove support wires until they cut and girdle the tree, using herbicides too near the tree, mower cuts on the bark...all are typical, and harmful, practices that I see all too often. If you have a tree, learn about the proper care to have years of shade and beauty! (I feel another blog entry coming on!)

The festival also had nurseries, garden design firms, plant vendors and other types of vendors you find at plant sales- garden hats, recycled garden tools and the like. Organizers thoughtfully included kids' activities (paint a flower pot, planting seeds and extracting DNA from a strawberry) and several booths where you could ask garden questions (like the extension service booth).

As I wrote at the start, the festival was small, but I hope it grows.

Happy gardening! And GoGreen Virginia...and the east coast...and the US!