3rd Annual
Spring Planting Festival
Terri Hendrix
Fri, March 11, 7:30 pm
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Rhythms of Spring Planting
Sat, March 12, 7:30 pm
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Our Sacred Garden
Tue, March 15, 7:00 pm
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St. Patrick: What it really means to be Green!
Thur, Mar 17, 7:00 pm
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Backyard Gardening Expo
Sun, March 20, 2:00 pm
Free to the public
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For a full schedule of events please visit the Gardens for Humanity website
3rd Annual Spring Planting Festival
Gardens for Humanity
2011 Spring Planting Festival
Connecting People to Place, Taste, and Story
March 12 to March 20
Connecting people to place and to one another by cultivating gardens and celebrating the arts
Gardens for Humanity presents the third annual Spring Planting Festival from March 12 to March 20. Opening the 2011 Festival on Saturday March 12 at 7:00 pm is a concert, Rhythms of Spring Planting, at the Cottonwood Old Town Center for the Arts, evoking the traditional joy of the rebirth of the planting season.
On Sunday, March 13, two of the world's leading visionaries of the slow-food and agricultural renaissance movements, Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD and Toby Hemenway, will set the stage for the week’s activities. Their Keynote address, From Land to Mouth - Connecting People to Place, Taste and Story will take place at 7:00 pm at St. John Vianney Church. They will present their latest thoughts on the state of our food supply, climate change and progress in new regenerative farming strategies.
From the Verde Valley to the northern Native Lands, our region has a rich agricultural and natural heritage that sustained its population for millennia, and is currently experiencing a renaissance as many people and organizations in the region work together to renew agriculture and energy self-sufficiency, and promote healthy environmental values.
The Festival will present workshops, cultural events, food and garden expos, films, and panel discussions around the common theme of connecting people to place through cultivating and learning about the various ways we interact with the natural world to improve our quality of life. From our spiritual connection to the earth to learning about native plants; from healing to cuisine; from gardening and sustainability education to farming as tourism; from foraging to bees and butterflies; from food security to bugs, and compost, opportunities for people of all ages will abound for conserving and working with plants and the earth during festival week
The final day of the Festival, Sunday, March 20 will be the Backyard Garden Expo. The Expo organizers, Verde Thumbs Garden Club of Cottonwood will bring together Master Gardeners and vendors demonstrating transplanting, composting, worm composting, starting seeds, thinning of new plants, companion planting, growing in containers, seed saving, organic pest control, and rain water harvesting.
For the Festival this year, Gardens for Humanity is building on the programs and partnerships that enrich our community to show the progress we are making regionally, working together for achieving sustainable communities. See the calendar and details of all the events, the partner organizations, and a brief biography of the presenters in the schedule below.
Spring Planting Festival Calendar of Events
March 12 - 20th, 2011
Saturday March 12th
Opening Festival Concert:
The Rhythms of Spring Planting
7:30 pm
Old Town Center for the Arts, 5th and Main, Cottonwood
$12 adv/$15 door/$18 priority
Keith Johnson, Vusi Shibambo and the Arizona Dunan Ensemble join together to feature solo, duo and ensemble playing by some of the finest drummers in Arizona to kick-off the 3rd Annual Spring Planting Festival and a week of activities, workshops, speakers and concerts throughout the Verde Valley and Sedona. Richard Sidy, President of Gardens for Humanity, will introduce the event.
Sunday March 13th
Spring Planting Festival Keynote Speakers
7:00 pm
St John Vianney Church, 180 Soldiers Pass, Sedona
$20 in advance, $15 seniors/students, $25 at the door.
From Land to Mouth with Gary Nabhan and Toby HemenwayConnecting People to Place, Taste and Story
Gardens for Humanity proudly presents two of the world’s leading visionaries of the slow-food and agricultural renaissance movements. Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD, is an internationally celebrated nature writer and educator, seed saver, conservation biologist and sustainable agriculture activist who has been called, “the father of the local food movement” by Mother Earth News. Toby Hemenway is the author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, which for the last seven years has been the best-selling permaculture book in the world. They will present their latest thoughts on the state of our food supply, climate change and progress in new regenerative farming strategies, as well as approaches currently missing in our efforts to meet these challenges.
Monday March 14th
Traditional Navajo Agricultural Practices
12:00 noon - 2:00 pm
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$10
“People don’t sing to their crops…… as much as they used to. But there were reasons for doing all of these things and…this knowledge is still worth knowing today.” This presentation by Don Piper is part of the Navajo Nation Traditional Agricultural Outreach Programs, a non-profit program seeking to assist clientele and families living within the southwest Navajo Nation area to return to traditional means of living.
Foraging for Wild Food
2:00 - 4:00 pm
Location: Carpool from 7 Centers Parking Lot
$10 *Limited to 20 people*
Join ethno botanists Patty West and Susie Smith for a field trip to learn the edible and not-so-edible plants in your local food-shed. We will touch, sniff, and taste our way through the botanical world along Oak Creek in the Chavez Pass area and learn practical tools to identify what we see.
WWOOFing Around the World
7:00 pm
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$10
Organize a true cultural experience on a poet’s dollar through WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms… living, learning, sharing organic lifestyles). Christopher Lane will share photos and family stories from his experience in hopes to inspire more families and individuals to WWOOF the world.
Tuesday March 15th
The Art of Herbal Preparations with Feather Jones
9:00 -11:00 am
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$15, includes sampling
*Limited to 20 people*
Learn how easy it is to make delicious tasting herbal remedies that even your kids will love including medicinal teas of local plants including Mormon Tea and White Fir, and tinctures of Yerba Mansa and Echinacea that will transform into sweet cordials.
Southwest Plant Walk with Phyllis Hogan
2:00 - 4:00 pm
Sedona Creative Life, 333 Schnebley Hill Road, Karmapa Garden
$10
*Limited to 20 people*
Spend the afternoon identifying traditional southwest medicine on the trails with herbalist Phyllis Hogan and learn scientific, Hopi, and Navajo names for plants and their medicinal uses.
Five Poets and a Harpist
7:00 pm
Old Town Center for the Arts, 5th and Main, Cottonwood
$10 adv/ $15 door/ $18 priority
Poets, Authors and musicians inspired by the theme “Our Sacred Garden: The Living Earth” will enchant the audience with diverse voices. Founder and former president of Gardens for Humanity, Adele Seronde, keynotes this special event.
Poets: Christopher Lane, Adele Seronde, Julie Zimmerman, Gary Everly, Carol Goldsmith
Harpist: Ani Williams
Wednesday March 16th
Vajrayogini Yoga with Ruth Hartung
9:00 - 10:30 am
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
Donation
From the lineage of Tibetan yoga, this practice brings the Earth energy into the body through flowing movements reminiscent of Tai Chi. Learn movements such as Breathing Hands, Spreading the Wings of the Dragon, and Opening the Lotus of the Heart to open up the energy channels in the body. For those of any level of yogic experience, from beginner to advanced.
Cooking with Local Food with Mira Murphy
10:30 am
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$15 includes lunch
*Limited to 18 people*
Create a meal based on the food local food available and how to utilize harvest from your garden (grinding flour, using fresh herbs) in delicious ways.
Reflections in Nature: Making Flower Essences
with Rhonda PallasDowney
1:45 - 4:00 pm
Location: Meet at Bill Gray Road outside Cottonwood
$10 *Limited to 20 people*
Visit the natural habitat of native plants such as Yucca, Chaparral, Strawberry Hedgehog, & Prickly Pear and learn about the plant’s doctrine of signatures and medicine and the use of flower essences within homeopathy, herbalism, and the Human Energy System known as the Chakras.
3rd Annual Public Forum
Planting Seeds for the Future
Gardens for Heart, Mind, and Body
The importance of developing school gardens
in our communities
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
Free admission
Join us for a dynamic roundtable discussion with a diverse group of panelists from school administrators to students, teachers, parents and garden advisors will share what they have experienced, what motivates them and what impacts they have observed on students, their learning, and upon the school community.
Thursday March 17th
Food Security Expo sponsored by Verde Valley Food Council
9:00 - 5:00 pm
St John Vianney, 180 Soldiers Pass, Sedona
Free admission
Meet representatives from local food banks, restaurants, farmers and other facets of agricultural production, Master Gardeners, school and hospital nutrition program representatives, people interested in and experienced with community gardens and more… to learn more about the current state of our local food system and explore with us the possibilities for increasing the production and local distribution of healthy, fresh foods grown here in the Verde Valley...or even in your own backyard!
5 Elements Yoga with Aromatherapy
9:00 - 10:30 am
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$10 Donation
This class is a playful series of yoga postures, visualization and music reflecting the 5 elements with meditations using essential oils w/ Ruth Hartung.
Gardening with the Devas with Michelle Fitzgerald
2:00 - 4:00 pm
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$10
Learning to work with devas and other intelligences within the Nature Kingdom can help you vitalize your gardens, maximize crop yield, dissuade pests from consuming your plants and more.
St. Patrick and What It Really Means to be Green!
with Bill McDorman
Musicians William Eaton and Connie Fisher
Ancient Lyre and Gaelic Celtic Traditional Ballads
7:00 pm
Old Town Center for the Arts
$10 adv/ $15 door/$18 priority
What can we learn from St. Patrick in relation to our current efforts at bioregionalism, self-reliance and even gardening? Bill McDorman will recount the Thomas Cahill story of How the Irish Saved Civilization and use St. Patrick as an example to inspire us as we move forward into the 21st century.
Friday March 18th
The Art of Distilling Essential Oils with Max and Clare Licher
9:00 - 11:00 am, 2:00 - 4:00 pm
Licher Art Studio
$15 *Limited to 20 people*
This day gives an experiential connection from gathering the plant to extracting the oil with an opportunity to experience 23 other native botanicals oils that Max & Clare have already distilled for PhiBee Aromatics.
All about Monarch Butterflies with Audrey Stephens
12:00 noon - 1 pm
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$10
Join the butterfly lady for a fun and fact-filled hour learning about the monarch lifecycle, migration and butterfly behavior patterns and go home with seeds to start your own butterfly garden.
Spiritual Beliefs and Practices in Indigenous Agriculture
with David Crow
7pm
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$10 donation at door
From the Chinese fertility rites practiced in the cult of Shen Nung to the Vedic fire ceremonies for abundant crops, ceremony, magic and festivities have woven the cycles of life, seasons and plant growth have been the basis of agriculture since humanity first began planting seeds.
Saturday March 19th
32nd Annual Native Plant Workshop is GOING NATIVE
Sponsored by Keep Sedona Beautiful
Registration 7:45 am -
Workshop 8:30 am - 3:00 pm
West Sedona Elementary School, 570 Posse Ground Road
Advanced tickets $20 for KSB members; $30 General Public;
tickets at door will be an additional $10
This day features two keynote speakers: Bill McDorman of Seeds Trust on The Reasonable Landscape and Jeff Schalau from the Arizona Cooperative Extension on The Agriculture/Environment Connection: Producing Safe Food and Clean Water While Conserving Local Ecosystems plus 8 other workshops.
The Feast of Nectars with David Crow
Saturday and Sunday
9:00 am - 6:00 pm
7 Centers Yoga Arts, 2115 Mountain Road, Sedona
$195
Join us for a weekend of tasting, smelling and studying the essences of sweetness that rejuvenate the body, strengthen vitality and uplift the heart. Milk, honeys, and cacao; tropical fruits, ancient grains and edible flowers; oils of roses, jasmines and plumeria; elixirs and syrups of tonifying herbs: these are a few of the subjects that we will study using the concepts of Chinese and Ayurvedic medicines and explore using sensory enjoyment and contemplation.
Gifts from the Garden at Willow Brook Farm
1:00 - 4:00 pm
Willow Brook Farm, 2775 Middle Verde Road, Camp Verde
$10 per family
*Limited to 10 families*
Join Denise Gould and Suzanne Gosar for an outdoor garden workshop focusing on children and families gardening together –learn about soil, seeds and composting in an atmosphere that cultivates respect for Mother Earth.
FRESH –The Movie
sponsored by Verde Valley CSA and Sandysproduce.com
7:00 - 9:00 pm
Sedona Public Library
$4
Fresh features sustainable farmer Joel Saladin, writer Michael Pollan, author of Omnivore’s Dilemma and award winning farmer urban farmer Will Allen telling stories of real people with personal initiative and concrete ways to engage in the local food movement.
Sunday March 20
The Backyard Gardeners Expo
2:00 - 6:00 pm
Old Town Center for the Arts, 5th Street and Main in Cottonwood
Free admission
The final day of the Spring Planting Festival is hosted by the Verde Thumbs Garden Club is a series of lectures to answer real life garden questions for successful backyard gardening including: composting, vermiculture, seasonal planting, wildlife and gardens, bugs and problem solving, irrigation management, low water crops, rain water harvesting and the opportunity to purchase seeds, soil amendments and more at local booths.
For a full schedule of events please visit
the Gardens for Humanity website
Contact : Ruth Hartung, 928.451.4632 vicepresident@gardensforhumanity.org
PO Box 1202, Sedona, AZ 86339
Gardens for Humanity is a 501(C)(3) non-profit educational organization
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