Mount Pisgah’s Annual Wildflower Festival
By Envision Magazine on May 24, 2016
Keeping with Festival tradition, the day of the Mount Pisgah Arboretum’s 37th Annual Wildflower and Music Festival proves to be a rainy one. This doesn’t seem to discourage any of its attendees, however. They come to the festival in droves, even under a thin drizzle. Some are listening to the live music or learning about local and invasive plants for the very first time today; others have been coming to this celebration for years.
The festival, which is run by the Mount Pisgah Arboretum and made possible by hundreds of passionate volunteers, is an event with palpable heart and soul. Local musicians set a lively mood, while festival-goers ramble through booths full of plants, books, baked goods, natural history exhibits, food and drink. Twenty percent of all proceeds will go towards supporting the Arboretum and its work in conservation and community education, so people wander through the tents with an extra incentive to splurge.
With guided nature hikes and up to 400 wildflower species on display, the festival is as educational as it is fun. With all there is to see and do, no wonder the event has such an enthusiastic following.
“I’ve volunteered for this one and the Mushroom Festival for the last three years in a row,” says Ryan, a volunteer in the book booth, as he takes break to look at the wildflowers. “I look forward to this more than most major holidays. This is more fun, for me, than Christmas!”
For Ryan, the Wildflower Festival was also an introduction to a community. Though Ryan lived in Seattle when he attended his first Arboretum festival, he has recently moved to Eugene. “The festivals might have been the seed, pardon the pun. But, I’ve kind of fallen in love with the culture and the community here in Eugene–the sort of emphasis on conscious consumption and the holistic approach to well-being, that I’ve found people are really involved in here.”
Like Ryan and many others, Jane Donahue also has a special history with the Wildflower Festival. She loves to come to the arboretum, and has been a vendor at the festival for at least ten years. “And it rains at every one!” she laughs, “It just waits for the Wildflower Festival… and then it rains!” The festival is the only place where Jane’s company Charting Nature sets up shop beyond the Internet. “We keep doing it because it’s fun,” she says, with a smile.
From vendors, to volunteers, to attendees, no one leaves the celebration disappointed. At day’s end, volunteers can be seen helping to carry boxes of plants and art to the parked cars, while friends and families mingle to say goodbye to this year’s Wildflower Festival, but not to the arboretum, which opens with sunrise and closes at sunset every day of the year.