The Ottawa Folk Festival in Full Bloom

August 4, 2009 · Filed Under Festival News, News

“Dig Your Roots” is the 2009 slogan for the Ottawa Folk Festival, to be held August 21 to 23 at Britannia Park. This slogan refers not only to the music at the Festival, but also to the fact that this year’s Festival will have a major Gardening theme. Under the skilled guidance of long-time Ottawa Folk Festival performer Ana Miura, the Festival will offer a rich array of garden-related activities, discussions and musically-themed events throughout the weekend.Many of the gardening activities will take place in the Festival’s new Gardening Village. This area will include the Garden Stage offering a range of seminars and discussions, the Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton Advice Tent where attendees can chat with gardening pros, and several large-scale participatory projects, including a Patchwork Garden and a Zen Garden. The Gardening Village will also offer a range of planting activities and garden-themed crafts for children, with opportunities to decorate flower pots and plant seeds to take home. As well, children will be invited to colour in one of Meredith Luce’s beautiful drawings of native flora and fauna. These pages will then be displayed as part of a 200-square foot “Paper Garden” in the Dance Tent.

The Garden Stage will host fascinating discussions and workshops with facilitation from CBC’s Ed Lawrence, the Ottawa Japanese Cultural Centre (OJCC), the Worm Factory, USC Canada and many others. Ed Lawrence, CBC Radio’s renowned horticultural expert and best-selling author, will host discussions on how to garden without pesticides, and will participate in book-signing sessions on both Saturday and Sunday. The OJCC will host a Kimono demonstration and a Japanese tea ceremony, courtesy of Camellia Teas of Ottawa. As well, the OJCC will run workshops on making origami flowers, and Rebecca Cragg will host a demonstration of Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging.

The Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton will be on hand to provide free gardening advice to all attendees on both Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 2pm. They will also have a selection of hands-on activities for children, such as propagating geraniums from cuttings; saving and re-planting radish seeds; and starting a peanut bush from seed. Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton (MGOC) draws on information and resources from over 800 Master Gardeners around the province, and many more world-wide. Gardening experts provide volunteer time to assist home gardeners through help lines, advice clinics, lectures and articles. According to MGOC member Rebecca Last, “The Master Gardeners of Ottawa-Carleton are thrilled to be part of the Ottawa Folk Festival’s gardening theme this year. We are a group of trained volunteers who provide unbiased horticultural advice and expertise to home gardeners.”

Of course, there will be several types of gardens on display at the Folk Festival. For the Patchwork Garden project, volunteers built 30 wooden planters and distributed them in advance to a variety of community groups and artists prior to the Festival. Recipients were asked to plant a mini-garden inspired by the Festival’s “Dig Your Roots” theme. In this way, the “patches” will reflect the diversity to be found in our community, and will celebrate that diversity in the form of a “patchwork quilt” of planters. Rebecca Cragg will create a Zen Garden to provide a tranquil place for Festival attendees to take a break.

City Repair Ottawa will host a workshop teaching attendees about building with cob, a traditional building material consisting of clay, sand, straw, water and earth. Participants can learn the basics and then get their hands (and feet!) dirty by helping to create a doll-sized house. Cob can be used for buildings, outdoor installations such as benches and bake-ovens, and art objects like sculptures and murals. Cob is fireproof, inexpensive, bio-degradable, and resistant to seismic activity.

The Ottawa Folk Festival would like to thank all the community partners that made the Gardening Village possible. A special thanks goes out to Ed Lawrence, Arbour Environmental Shoppe, USC Canada, Master Gardeners of Ottawa Carleton, The Worm Factory, City Repair Ottawa, Ottawa Japanese Cultural Centre, Just Food, Ottawa Green Roofs, Canadian Organic Growers and Camellia Teas of Ottawa.

Tags: family, folk, Folkfest, live music, Music, national capital, Ottawa Festivals, Ottawa Folk Festival, outdoor activities, outdoor concert