Melea Hames: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Unexpected Adventures in North Alabama, part of the Destination Marketing Podcast Network. I'm so excited today because we are on location at the Huntsville Botanical Garden. And if you'll just listen here, you can hear the birds chirping and crickets, maybe. So, it's a beautiful day out here and I'm so excited to have Anna Beck and Rebecca Turk with me. So welcome ladies.
Anna Beck: [00:00:27] Thank you so much.
Rebecca Turk: [00:00:27] Thanks for having us here.
Melea Hames: [00:00:28] Yeah. Anna is the Director of Communications and Special Projects at the Garden and Rebecca is the Director of Learning and Public Engagement. So, Anna, you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and then Rebecca you can follow.
Anna Beck: [00:00:42] Sure, I'd be happy to. So I work here at the garden with our marketing and communications team. I've been with the garden for about four years now. And so it is my pleasure and privilege to share all that we do with the community to tell everybody about our exciting programs and our initiatives, our exhibits and our events. I just get to share all of that through our marketing and communication efforts.
Rebecca Turk: [00:01:07] And so, as director of learning and public engagement, I'm over all of our amazing educational programs, our major events, our volunteerism, our exhibits and our outreach initiatives. So, Anna and I work together a lot. I've been here about 2.5 years and I've been in this industry working in public gardens my entire career. So I absolutely love working in public gardens, the beauty, the experiences and all the opportunities.
Melea Hames: [00:01:32] Okay. Cool. What are some other gardens that you've worked on?
Rebecca Turk: [00:01:35] I've worked at Missouri Botanical Garden, the JC Austin Arboretum, the SFA Mast Arboretum and the Moore Farms Botanical Garden. So all over the southeast and down into Texas.
Melea Hames: [00:01:45] All right, cool. That is so cool. Well, welcome. I'm excited to talk to y'all, especially out here in nature.
Anna Beck: [00:01:53] It’s a beautiful day.
Rebecca Turk: [00:01:54] It really is.
Melea Hames: [00:01:55] It's like the perfect place. I mean, if you're going to do an episode about the garden, you need to be in the garden, right?
Anna Beck: [00:02:00] I would agree.
Rebecca Turk: [00:02:00] Exactly. Especially on a day like today.
Melea Hames: [00:02:03] Yes. Okay. Well, give us some background on the Huntsville Botanical Garden.
Anna Beck: [00:02:07] Sure. So, the Huntsville Botanical Garden is a public garden located here in Huntsville, Alabama in the northern part of Alabama. We started as an idea from a group of very passionate and very dedicated volunteers in the 1980s. They had this inspiration to start a public garden in the region and then fast forward lots of years later with lots of community support and lots of dedication to the project and we opened to the public in 1988 as a public garden and we have been serving our community ever since.
Melea Hames: [00:02:38] Yeah, that is so cool that it's been around for all those years and people still love to come out and enjoy the garden.
Anna Beck: [00:02:46] Oh, absolutely. We have just continued to grow for all of those years. Continues to grow, continues to expand and we're really just happy to be here.
Melea Hames: [00:02:57] Yeah, I know. It's one of my favorite places in North Alabama. I love coming and just walking around and spending time and come to some of the special events that y'all have here at the garden. So I guess that's a good segue then to talk about some of the events. Do you want to talk about some of the events that y'all have each year?
Rebecca Turk: [00:03:15] Sure. So we have lots of different kinds of events. Our largest event that happens annually for us is Galaxy of Lights and Galaxy of Lights is a large regional holiday light show here at the garden. that takes place each year in November and December and with the Holiday Light Show at the garden, it's like the magic comes to life and you experience the garden in a completely different way. So we have walking, nights, driving nights races, all kinds of things of different ways to experience it. So it's a really special way to experience nature in a completely different way.
All throughout the year though, we have like lots of different kinds of events. We have events that are focused like our plant sales where we really we grow a lot of our plants here on site which we're really proud of and they're ones that we truly believe in for our region. That we believe would thrive in a home landscape. So we work really hard as multiple departments to put those amazing plants into our homeowners so that they can have it in their home gardens as well. So, a great way to kind of take our mission of connecting people to plants and letting them have that hands-on experience with it too.
Melea Hames: [00:04:23] Have some of the garden in your own garden. That's so cool.
Rebecca Turk: [00:04:26] Exactly. Exactly. And it also sometimes people will say that you might have a black thumb or I would say everyone has a green thumb. You just have to find your plant that gives you the confidence to then be interested in trying new ones too. So we always keep trying.
Melea Hames: [00:04:41] That's cool. I like that. Yeah. So Anna, do you want to tell us what other events y'all have at the garden?
Anna Beck: [00:04:47] Yes, absolutely. So, Rebecca sort of touched on this, but the mission of the garden is to connect people with plants. So that is why we are here. That is our purpose everything we do here at the garden has to do with helping people connect to plants, helping people build that personal relationship that they have to the green spaces around them to enjoy their time in nature, spend time outside.
And so we offer opportunities throughout the year to increase that connection to the natural environment, whether it's exhibits, programs, events, all sorts of different ways to get involved. Rebecca mentioned, Galaxy of Lights, which is our annual holiday event. Another annual event that we hold here at the garden is called Festifall. So in September and October, we celebrate that harvest season. It's that classic feeling of fall time and changing leaves and pumpkins and scarecrows, all those good things. We love that one. That's a really great way to come out in the fall.
Then we offer recurring events and programs for youth and adults. We have summer camps every summer that offer school children the opportunity to get outside when they're not in school, get in touch with nature, do lots of hands-on activities. I won't steal Rebecca's thunder. She can tell you a little bit more about that one.
Melea Hames: [00:06:00] She's like, that's my thing.
Rebecca Turk: [00:06:04] Yeah. So with our youth programs, I mean, all of our youth programs now are STEM-based, which we're really excited about. So we don't only focus on just the content, it's also how they're thinking as a group, teamwork, how the supplies, solving a problem. But we do it in a really fun and surprising way. So we have extensive camps like Anna had mentioned that take place through spring and fall and summer is our big peak time. We have a youth volunteer program which is really exciting to get 13–18-year-olds out into the garden, working alongside our expert staff in horticulture or plant conservation or education. They really get to see what it means to be in those green sector careers, which is a really great mentorship opportunity for them.
We have programs for down to two-year-olds all the way up. So there really is something for everyone whether an individual child or for a family. We have family opportunities like our campouts and night hikes as well. So it really is something for everybody.
Melea Hames: [00:07:07] And that's really cool too to teach young people about the importance of volunteering because you also handle, you know, the volunteers. So that's really cool. I like that. Grow them up to be volunteers.
Rebecca Turk: [00:07:20] Exactly. That program, it's so fun to see their growth. They come in with an interest in the environment and they learn new things, whether it's about stewardship or maybe they learned a new skill or what a department does or maybe they made a mentor or just understood what our experts do in the field. It's a really great program for them to truly see what it means to work at a public garden. It's a lot of fun.
Melea Hames: [00:07:48] That's really cool. Well, I know one of the other popular things here at the garden is the butterfly house. Do you want to tell us about the butterfly house?
Anna Beck: [00:07:56] Yes, I would love to. So yes, our Purdy Butterfly House is incredibly popular. It is an open-air structure that serves as a habitat for butterflies in the spring and summer during those warmer months when they thrive. So May through September is the best time of year to come see the butterflies in the Purdy Butterfly House and it is just filled with thousands of fluttering native butterflies. They're all native to this region. It is set up to be a place where they can live like they would live out in nature. So it has all of the plants that they need. It has the water that they need places where they can find rest and safety and shelter.
It's really an incredible experience you step into it and it's just a burst of color and fluttering wings and everything's flying around you. It's really magical, which is one of the things that makes it so popular.
Melea Hames: [00:08:43] Yeah, it's like a little fairy tale land with all the butterflies.
Anna Beck: [00:08:46] Yes.
Rebecca Turk: [00:08:47] I love taking children through there, whether my own or whether on a program just because seeing the magic in their faces when all of the butterflies flutter around them is truly a moment to remember. We do a lot of programs in there as well. The public can actually release butterflies in there, which is a really cool experience to do as a family or a couple or some people do them in memory of people as well. But you can actually release butterflies through our programs too.
Melea Hames: [00:09:15] That is so cool. I love it. I love butterflies. Whenever you see one, it’s just like…
Rebecca Turk: [00:09:21] They're mesmerizing.
Melea Hames: [00:09:23] Yeah, they really are the brightly colored butterflies. Yeah, that's so cool. Tell us a little more about the exhibits that you have seasonally throughout the garden.
Rebecca Turk: [00:09:33] Oh, I love talking about exhibits. Exhibits. are such a fun way to experience the garden. First, a great thing is they're always included in our daytime admission. So when you come to the garden during the day, you always get to see the fun exhibits that are going on during certain sections of the year and we have exhibits every year. So some examples of exhibits in the past have been, we did a really great one called Uncaged, which celebrated the relationship between birds and plants and us as humans. That was a really exciting one that we did where it was like a scavenger hunt through the garden where they found large birdhouses and large bird cages and honestly a giant cuckoo clock as well.
Also in full swing, which was a very different kind of experience, it was focused on taking a moment to just stop and swing and just listen to the beautiful sounds of nature and just the beautiful landscapes in front of you. I know for me, there's a lot of nostalgia with swings. Swinging in the dogwood trail just really brought me back to my childhood and getting to swing under a beautiful canopy of trees was magical.
So, we also have stick work which we've done in the past. And that is with well-known artist Patrick Doherty, where it brought elements of nature through tree saplings to life in a really unique art form that you can explore and go through. So they're all very different. Our next one is called Origami in the Garden that will be in 2023. And it really celebrates art and nature in a different kind of way. So we can't wait to share more and have people experience it and truly kind of go through that journey with us.
Exhibits are just a really unique way to go through the garden, walk through the garden and kind of relate to nature and connect the plants in a different way. I love them.
Melea Hames: [00:11:22] I remember when you had night blooms, that was really cool. And then there were the animals that lit up and that was really cool too. That was real magical.
Rebecca Turk: [00:11:35] Yes, that was our Chinese lantern festival. And yeah, both of those were I think really unique because it brought different aspects of nature to life at night. And so it was kind of you saw it in a different way because what you normally saw as nature around you was dark and so it illuminated in a different kind of way that kind of had its own sense of magic.
Melea Hames: [00:11:57] Yeah, I know I timed it just right when I came for the Chinese lanterns, I came just right before dusk. So I saw it in the daytime and then I went back through and saw it at night and I was like, I really timed this perfectly because it's like you got two different perspectives on it. So that was really cool.
Anna Beck: [00:12:16] Definitely. I loved sunset for both of those because like the sky was golden too. And, yeah, just love it.
Melea Hames: [00:12:23] Yeah. And y'all have also done something. Speaking of golden, your golden hour evenings in the summertime.
Anna Beck: [00:12:31] Yes. Those are so much fun as well. those are an opportunity in those summer months when the sun is setting later. We're able to extend our garden hours on certain days and we bring in live music, we’ll have a bar and we'll have food available and it's really an opportunity for people to come after work. So, on a weekday, you can stop because we've extended those garden hours and just relax as the sun is going down you get that beautiful sunset or twilight kind of hour over the lake. It's a really beautiful time to be in the garden and it's an opportunity to take a deep breath and kind of pause from the usual hustle and bustle of the work week.
Melea Hames: [00:13:10] Bring a little picnic blanket, just sit down, smell all the flowers. Listen to the sounds. Yeah. Well, that's cool. Well, tell us about the garden itself. Like, how big is it? How many species of plants, flowers? It's got to be massive amounts.
Rebecca Turk: [00:13:28] So, our acreage, we're 118 acres. And so we're a good-sized garden and the species count changes frequently because we have an amazing team of expert staff in our conservation and curation and our horticulture staff. So it's growing and growing. It's just amazing to see as our garden is maturing. So in garden years, we are a garden that is continuing to mature more and more so as our trees are getting older, each landscape area honestly evolves more because those different trees and shrubs are changing the feel of the area as they grow. And so that's a really exciting thing to watch and be part of and see how those areas continue to evolve over the years for sure.
Anna Beck: [00:14:15] And one of the things that make the Huntsville Botanical Garden specifically unique is that we are located here uniquely in Huntsville, Alabama. The North Alabama region is just an incredibly biodiverse region in general for plants and animals. Alabama is actually one of the most biodiverse states in the country. And so we have this really unique opportunity to create these habitats, these environments, these ecosystems with plants and animals that are so broad and so diverse and truly unique to this area that it creates an experience that really isn't one you can have anywhere else. You don't get this kind of plant diversity in another garden that's not in Huntsville.
So, we feel very fortunate to be in the location that we are and we feel very proud to be able to move forward with our mission of connecting people to plants in this region specifically where there's so much to connect to.
Melea Hames: [00:15:06] It's just right in the middle of the city. Like oasis.
Anna Beck: [00:15:14] Yes. I love the word oasis for it. It really is. You don't realize sometimes that we're 118 acres when you pass on the street, you're driving down Bob Wallace Avenue and you see the entrance and you come up to the Guest Center. You get a sense for how big it is, but it just keeps going. There's just always more to explore.
Melea Hames: [00:15:32] Yeah. And I love doing the walking nights for the Galaxy Lights. Those are my favorites. So you really do see how big it is when you walk it. I mean, when you drive through, you're like, oh, yeah, that took a little while to drive through. But when you walk it you're like, wow. Okay. This is expensive back here. Okay. Well, great. Well, tell me, Anna, what is your favorite part about the garden?
Anna Beck: [00:15:57] Oh, boy, that is a trickier question I think than it would seem. But probably my favorite part about the garden is that we are so welcoming to everyone. Rebecca always assures me that I don't have a black thumb, but I am not an expert gardener by any means. I am certainly not here because of my horticulture knowledge. But even though I don't know a ton about plants or gardening necessarily, I still have the opportunity to connect with nature because of the beautiful plant displays and because of the experience that we've cultivated here in our 118 acres.
So, for me, I can still find that plant connection. But for people who have more horticulture knowledge or more affinity to gardening, there's also another layer for them. They can see the unique species and they can admire the sustainable plantings that we've put in all throughout the garden and they can experience it at a different level. So I think my favorite part about the garden is that no matter what your interest is and no matter what your entry point into nature is, there's an opportunity for you to connect and there's a place for you.
Melea Hames: [00:17:05] That's really cool. I love it. Okay, Rebecca, what's your favorite part?
Rebecca Turk: [00:17:10] That's like asking me my favorite plant. So, my background is in horticulture and so I'm going to kind of play on the horticultural side just because I could pick a favorite for every avenue of things that we do. I think what I love so much is I can walk outside every day and something is different. I love that different garden areas come to life in different seasons. There's always something going on. Have different plants are show stoppers at different times of the year. So certain times of the year, I mean, like, I love the four seasons because it's in peak and then I'm like, oh, wait, but look at this now and then I'm like, oh my gosh, well, look at this.
So, the aquatic garden, for example, in the summer, especially late summer with all the aquatic plants in full bloom is just mesmerizing. And so, like water color-esque. And so I just love that each area and each season and each day I come out. I'm surprised by something new. It makes me be curious, it makes me enjoy the beauty that nature has in a completely different way. So I think I like that side of it as an everyday component for myself personally. But also our guests get to experience that every time they come and that it’s so fun to walk around., sometimes take the name tag off and just hear the joy and the laughter or know those people taking advantage and just sitting in different spaces and contemplating. I love that. It's a place for everyone to come to for a lot of different reasons.
Melea Hames: [00:18:45] Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. I love both your answers. They're perfect and they're very good because they complement each other so well because you're like, I don't have a background in this, but I do have a background in this. Both enjoy it in so many different ways. So that is so cool. Well, thank you all so much for being here. I really appreciate your time. And do you want to tell us where our listeners can find the botanical garden on social media?
Anna Beck: [00:19:10] Absolutely. You can always find us online on our website hsvbg.org. You can also find us on social media at HSV Garden, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. We're at Huntsville Botanical Garden.
Melea Hames: [00:19:24] Okay. All right. And how can people get involved in volunteering? Where can we go for that?
Rebecca Turk: [00:19:30] That is an excellent question. So they can find out about volunteering by going to our website. We have all of our information there, even the application there where they can apply online and it goes straight to our volunteer team. They can also contact our front desk. So when you call our main number they can direct them to our volunteer team and also just simply by emailing volunteer@hsvbg.org.
We want to continue to add more people to our team. We love adding new members to the team. And we always want to make sure people know though that we have a ton of positions for you to work with plants with the garden. We also have a lot that have nothing to do with actually working with the plants. We have major event volunteers. We have tour guides which we call our docents. We have admin volunteers and education ones as well. So we have, we have something for everybody.
Melea Hames: [00:20:19] And you probably need a lot of people to help put out the lights for Galaxy of Lights, right?
Rebecca Turk: [00:20:23] A lot. It is a team effort. I'll put it that way, but it's always exciting to see all of our work once it all truly does light up.
Melea Hames: [00:20:33] That is so cool. Well, thank y'all both so much. I appreciate your time. And North Alabama social platforms are linked in the description. Thanks for joining us on location here at the Huntsville Botanical Garden and we will be back next time with more about North Alabama adventures.
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