Event aimed at sparking youth interest in gardening
One group of youngsters gleefully played around one of the large trees standing in the midst of the beautiful Destrehan Plantation landscape while others enjoyed story time or stuffed their own scarecrow.
All of it came as part of the festivities at the first annual Backyard Bash on Sunday, an event put on by Destrehan Plantation and the LSU Ag Center Master Gardeners. The idea behind the event was to give community families a fun event to come together while also teaching community children about the enjoyment that can be found in gardening.
“You know we were just sitting at home and I saw it on Facebook and thought it might be a fun thing for us to do,” said Alison Price of Destrehan, who brought her children Kellan, 6, and Sidney, 4. “They’re eating ice cream and having fun playing at the different stations. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Kellan didn’t hesitate to note his favorite part of the day.
“Hiding by the tree!” he exclaimed with laughter.
The themed event was planned as a sequel to the plantation’s successful Christmas event. The activities, targeted for children ages 4-10, included building scarecrows, making crafts, storytelling by Luvi the Ladybug, creation of seedling pots and sow seeds, learning about organic gardening and beneficial insects, potato sack races and hula hoop competition.
There were also refreshments like Plum Street Snoballs, Louisiana Lemonade and Old Time Lemonade. [pullquote]“Gardening is kind of a lost art.” – Melissa Monica, Destrehan Plantation spokeswoman[/pullquote]
“Gardening is kind of a lost art,” said Melissa Monica, Destrehan Plantation spokeswoman. “We wanted to hopefully spark some interest there and shed a nice light on it. The summer events can be a bit tougher than the fall events because of the heat, but we’re happy with how things turned out today.”
The heat was thankfully less of an issue on this overcast day — and more fortunately, the rain held off as well.
“We thought about pushing it back to our rain date but we just said, you know what, the rain’s gonna hold off, and it did,” Monica said.
Friends Lori Gouzien and Kristi Savage brought their respective sons, Paul and Jacob, to the event and found plenty of enjoyment.
“It’s under the oaks … they’re planting plants and they got to go off and do their thing. I really thought it was lovely,” said Gouzien.
Added Savage – who jokingly referred to her son as “the dirty one” in reference to his gleeful embrace the garden-themed fun, added it was a great chance to get the kids outside and active.
“Just the chance to get them away from the computer,” she said, adding, “and it’s a nice, inexpensive outing. It’s something different.”
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