Legacy Magazine

Wren Smith

The time is right (or ripe) for our interpretive efforts to tap into the consciousness coalescing around locally produced food, food safety, nutrition, heirloom produce, sustainable practices, community gardens, edible landscapes, farmers markets, and community celebrations. Since plants are at the core of our food chain and central to this emerging dialogue, our sense of taste provides an important pathway to building interpretive programs that tastefully nurture community while linking us with new partners and audiences that can help us protect the resources we cherish.

Heirloom vegetables and flowers grace the Tinsley House gardens at the Museum of the Rockies.

Farmers markets are abuzz with families connecting with nature through their association with the farmers and gardeners who usually provide more than fresh local produce. They swap stories, food samples, recipes, and smiles. I’ve noticed lots of smiles at farmers markets, and many “ums” and “yums” as folks sample slices of blood red brandywines and peach-colored melons, the juice of these treats running down chins. There is a bit of a clamor and a new urgency around food and its production. This is due in part to our desire to counter the trend in the rates of obesity and diet-induced diabetes in this country. It may be a desire for more authentic experiences—experiences that call forth something new in us—new ways of seeing, being, or perhaps thinking about the food we eat and asking more questions. Where does it come from, and from how far away? Has it been genetically modified, and if so, do I care or should I care? Some of the urgency may be the fact that some of the old-timers who can teach us how to grow and maintain organic fruit and other more challenging produce are passing away.

Whatever the reason, interest in linking more directly with our food is definitely on the rise. According to a USDA website, the number of farmers markets in the U.S. has grown from 1,755 in 1994 to 5,274 as of mid-2009.

Resources are Growing a Movement
Programs such as Growing a Green Generation, Wisconsin’s Fast Plants, The Farm to School Network, and the Slow Foods movement, as well as organizations like Louisville’s Food Literacy Project and 15 Thousand Farmers, are springing up like multiplier onions. These programs and organizations provide new partnership opportunities and potential for making our message relevant to new audiences. Books such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food have helped nourish the growth of this greening food movement. The Edible Communities publications from The Edible Communities Inc. (ECI) have become a standard-bearer for the local foods movement in many cities. Like other Edible publications, Edible Louisville provides recipes and stories that highlight local farmers, gardeners, and others in the community that are finding new (and old) ways to celebrate our connection with the land and live more responsibly. Many nature centers, gardens, arboreta, and historic sites are digging in and providing festivals that celebrate the edible offerings of the seasons while helping visitors make connections between our food choices and the ecology of place.

Autumn Root Soup celebrations are remembered and celebrated anew each spring in the “spritely” daffodils.

Four years ago Thomas Jefferson’s beloved Monticello became the site of the annual Heritage Harvest Festival sponsored by the Southern Seed Exchange. This family-oriented program now attracts thousands and highlights organic and traditional agriculture and regional foods, including tasting sessions, workshops, and talks. Near the town of Mansfield, Missouri, what started as a garden festival in 1998 has grown into the region’s monthly Big Garden Festival sponsored by Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

In many states, programs like Maryland’s Master Gardeners are playing a significant role interpreting the importance of food plants in a campaign called Grow it, Eat it. The mission of this campaign is “to help Marylanders improve health and save money by growing fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs using sustainable practices.” One of the stated goals of this campaign is to teach intensive, low-cost, sustainable growing techniques that maximize food production per area, protect and improve natural resources, and improve human health. Surely many interpretive sites would find partnership opportunities within such goals.

Edible Plants Connect Us with History and Ecology
Last August I visited the Living History Farm at the Museum of the Rockies, where they grow varieties of vegetables and flowers that were commercially available from 1890 to 1905. I was impressed not only by the beauty of the heirloom gardens but by the friendly costumed volunteers cooking in the Victorian-era log cabin known as the Tinsley House. It is clear from the garden displays and from talking with volunteers and staff that they want visitors to experience daily life from this time period as well as learn stories behind the plants growing there. The opportunity to smell a simmering pot of beans or a chance to taste old varieties of tomatoes certainly make the experience more memorable. The gift shop sells many of the seeds grown and gathered from their gardens and this provides funding for purchasing more heirloom seeds each season. The seeds also help people plant a living link with the region’s history. In my home state of Kentucky, staff of the 1890s farm in the Land Between the Lakes understands the importance of “tasteful” interpretation. Visitors are frequently greeted by the sights, sounds, and warming fragrances emanating from the cabin’s fireplace, where farm vegetables are transformed into fragrant and tasteful experiences.

Growing and gathering foods from the garden or from the wild can help us be more aware of our relationships with the wider community of life. For months my garden has been decked out each morning with the shimmering webs of the giant yellow garden spiders catching their breakfast while I gather mine. Since I started keeping bees, I’m more attentive to plants that produce food for “my girls.” Surely those asters and goldenrod growing by the fence will provide my bees (and the lovely native bees) with pollen and nectar.

An interest in harvesting or growing plants for food can help us be more attentive to what’s growing in and out of our gardens. This past April instead of hosting another invasive plants workshop, Bernheim Arboretum offered a three-hour Eat-a-Weed workshop to a full house! This workshop armed visitors with information on destructive invasive species, and provided visitors with something practical they could do to help control weeds: Eat them!

Plants Quench Our Thirst to Connect
Many communities grow crops and produce beverages that satisfy our thirst for authentic connections with places. The roadside stands selling ciders and fresh orange juice signify the seasons and may help us celebrate the genius loci when we travel. Some regions specialize in crafting distinctive beer or wine. In my community of Bardstown, Kentucky, bourbon is “boss” and provides opportunities to partner with distilleries linked with the region’s Bourbon Trail. In fact, Isaac W. Bernheim, founder of the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, made his fortune in the bourbon industry and created Bernheim Forest with portions of that fortune. Maps and tours linking these local beverages provide opportunities to take a more spirited approach to our interpretive programs and offerings. Visitors sampling local beverages are open to experiencing these in the context of the local history, resources, and community and this provides opportunities to link resources, messages, and connect with new audiences.

In conclusion
Plants are primary in our exploration of food and can help us understand history and ecological relationships, and make our stories relevant, more enjoyable, and maybe even more digestible. Real food nourishes on many levels and this knowledge is catching on! Administrators, marketers, and interpreters who ignore this trend may miss opportunities for growing sustainable and new audiences.

For More Information
Kingsolver, Barbara, Camille Kingsolver, and Steven L. Hopp. 2007. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. New York: HarperCollins.

Pollan, Michael. 2006. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: Penguin Press.

Pollan, Michael 2008. In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. New York: Penguin Press.

Websites & Organizations
Edible Communities. www.ediblecommunities.com/content

The Farm to School Network. www.farmtoschool.org

Slow Foods International. www.slowfood.com

Growing Healthy Kids. www.foodsecuritypartners.org/growing-healthy-kids

Wren Smith is the interpretive programs manager for Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Kentucky. Reach her at 502-955-8512, x227 or Wren@bernheim.org.

By Wren Smith

While it may be second nature for us to speak about the view from a favorite overlook or the architectural design of our visitor centers and various other sight-dependent features and creatures, we often miss opportunities to engage visitors in sensory-rich experiences provided by the Green Kingdom. Unlike animals, plants can’t run, crawl, or fly away and thus are easily accessible. Our sense of smell is particularly conducive to sowing the seeds of memories that may last a lifetime.

Visitors enjoy the fragrance of lemon balm in a Bernheim garden.

A Tale of a Smell
To this day the smell of ground ivy whirls me back to childhood evenings hunting nightcrawlers in a graveyard with my dad. For me, this memory, redolent with the earthy pungency of this creeping and weedy herb, is infused with imagery and meaning. In my mind’s eye I can clearly see two shadowy figures: one a grown man and the other a small girl of nine or 10. In the misty darkness following a summer rain, we are sweeping our flashlight beams across the ground, between the rows of headstones, and under the boughs of hemlocks. In this damp and odoriferous place, the ground ivy, fragrant and fecund, seems woven into a living burial shroud. But we are not there to honor the dead. We are there to catch the living—the shimmering glint of these enormous annelids as they wiggle up through the ground ivy on a warm, wet summer’s eve.

Nightcrawlers keep part of the body in their earthen burrows, so they can quickly slip out of danger and out of reach. Like my dad, I learned to move slowly, imitating the great blue heron we often admired on our fishing trips. I learned to hold my thumb and forefinger like the heron’s beak, then inch closer and closer, until I could grab the slime-covered ground hugger and gently tug it out of the moist earth, and into our awaiting bait bucket.

To this day, the smell of ground ivy not only fills me with these images, lessons, and memories, but also tenderness towards my dad, who furthered my bond with nature on our many fishing trips, where we used those nightcrawlers as bait. The odor of ground ivy also reminds me of an experience Dad and I shared with “exploding nightcrawlers”—but that’s a less tender tale for another time.

Follow Your Nose
Dianne Ackerman, author of A Natural History of the Senses, explains that our sense of smell developed from the oldest part of our brain, the olfactory lobe. Thus plant odorants (tiny molecules that carry odors) have a long shelf life in our memory. Because of this, you can invite visitors to tap into their own memories and use this olfactory information to conjure up “the ghosts” of past experiences that can link visitors to the present. Whether using actual plant fragrances or drawing on those from memory, plants can heighten interpretive imagery and allow visitors a more personal experience.

Despite the fact that our sense of smell provides a direct path to memory and meaning, many interpreters and site designers ignore the olfactory option for enhancing and deepening visitor experiences. But most of us (as well as our visitors) can easily recall a fragrance from childhood and a favorite memory associated with it. See for yourself. What fragrance connects you to a favorite childhood place or experience? If you find a powerful and fragrant memory, more than likely that remembered fragrance is rooted in the Green Kingdom. Newly mowed hay, tobacco hanging in the barn, fresh baked bread, lilacs, lavender, peppermint from the creek, the sweet smell of decaying fall leaves, or the pungent odors emanating from the salt marsh are just some of smells many of our visitors recall. Some interpretive sites encourage visitors to follow their noses, and these sites may be hot on the trail of the sustained visitor (a visitor that samples, then returns again and again for more filling offerings). Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania initiated such an ongoing series of programs known as Fragrant Fridays. Visitors have opportunities to explore a fragrant plant that is highlighted each month. This July they featured Lovely Lavender, and provided visitors opportunities throughout the month to learn lavender lore as well as how to grow and use lavender in making scented gifts, edible treats, and recipes. These sorts of sensory-rich engagements will have visitors coming back for more and create sustained and deeper connections.

The expression “right under your nose” is an apt one, but full of irony when you consider how the sense of smell is often far removed from most teaching/learning experiences. Many children and adults don’t seem to know how to get the most from their noses. For instance, many plants have more fragrance in their foliage than in their flowers, and I’ve noticed visitors often take only a “wimpy” whiff of proffered and fragrant greenery. Thus you may need to demonstrate how to release volatile and odoriferous oils by gently pinching a few leaves (perhaps of mint, lemon balm, fennel, etc.) then lightly rolling the leaves between your hands before taking a deep whiff. I once showed some young visitors how to release the fragrances of lemon balm and mountain mint. I was shocked afterwards when one little boy enthusiastically exclaimed, “Wow! What did you spray on these plants to make them smell so good?”

Imagine the odors in a crowded household before modern sanitation and ventilation. For centuries many fragrant plants served as strewing herbs. Forerunners of our modern air fresheners, strewing herbs are fragrant herbs strewn on floors. These herbs released their fragrance as people walked on them, truly changing the chemistry in the room. Sweet annie, thyme, sage, mint, and rosemary were useful for masking and replacing the many unpleasant odors. Providing visitors with the chance to crush and sniff various fresh or dried strewing herbs (perhaps while showing a can of air freshener) may convey the intangible relief that fragrant plants offer suffering noses. In fact, some herbs contain chemicals that may actually inhibit odor-causing bacteria. Many cultures also use plants in purification rituals or in community celebrations. Years ago, I was visited by a young Iranian woman who, upon smelling the cedar burning in my wood stove, became excited and a bit homesick. Inhaling deeply, her eyes sparkled as she explained how her family burned a similar wood as an incense during special family celebrations.

Perhaps you work at a historic site and can invite visitors to an early kitchen where the pungent odor of garlic hangs in the doorway or some spicebush tea simmers on a wood stove. Fragrance gardens provide a feast of accessible interpretive opportunities that please other senses as well. In addition to smells and their tales, visitors experience the great hum of life as bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, and clearwing moths dance and buzz about on brightly colored blossoms amid textured leaves. Many sunflowers offer visitors a warm and resinous fragrance and demand attention with their bright colors, which are also visited by attentive bees. While visitors get added pleasure when they experience fragrant plants actually growing and gracing a landscape, don’t let the lack of an odiferous garden dissuade you from using plants and their fragrance at your site. Plants and plant parts (dried leaves, essential oils, and spices) are portable and ever available. If you can accurately and deftly fit plant fragrances into mission-based themes, you can add this magic to your programs. Take a deep breath: look around, what allies from the Green Kingdom can you enlist to connect with peoples’ everyday lives? You and those green friends may create memories that last a lifetime.

Wren Smith is the interpretive programs manager for Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Kentucky. Reach her at 502-955-8512, x227 or Wren@bernheim.org.

By Wren Smith

For thousands of years plants have been linked with many ancient traditions as spell binders, capable of working specific magic. While I’m not suggesting that interpreters practice these ancient crafts in the literal sense, I believe plants can be powerful allies in our efforts to restore a deeper connection to our cultural and ecological heritage.

Even dandelions can be captivating. The author’s niece Rylie Marie investigates.

Stories Restore
There are stories in land, stories in the rocks, in the trees, and in the plants growing in your backyard. Plants offer interpreters stories that connect the histories of people, places, and animals, stories that sweep across cultures, languages, and even species, stories of invasion, cooperation, opportunity, survival, love, and loss. Unearthing these stories provides a treasure trove of interpretive possibilities. Our real aim in learning and sharing plant stories, as well as other stories, should never be about dispensing “nickel knowledge” of natural history, but about helping visitors restore a sense of their own roots in the land. Anchoring these plant stories in universal concepts makes them more memorable, meaningful, and, at times, magical. Ecologist and writer Gary Paul Nabhan suggests that we “re-story” the land by making it a part of our story, our seasonal celebrations, our community gatherings and festivals.

It is easier to protect places that are imbued with familiar and cherished stories. In his thought-provoking book, Cultures of Habitat, Nabhan says that if we track down these stories to the finest detail, our own lives will be enriched. He adds:

In every biotic community, there are story lines that fiction writers would give their eyeteeth for…. Dormancies of lotus seeds that outdistance Rip van Winkle’s longest nap. Promiscuities amongst the neighboring oak trees that would make even Nabokov and his Lolita blush.

Nabhan asks, with the myriad of stories around us, how many of them do we recognize as touching our lives in some way?

Most Americans can identify thousands of brand names and logos, but fewer than 10 common plants in their own backyards. These plants exist outside the zone of perceived relevance. Ecologist Aldo Leopold reminded us that the first rule of tinkering is to keep all the parts. Inherent in this rule is the notion that we should also know what the parts are; otherwise how can we hope to know what’s there, or what’s missing, or in the case of invasive species, what shouldn’t be there? How can we restore our connection to the places we want to protect without the stories from the Green Kingdom?

Learning the names from these other lives is one starting point to learning these stories. Once you know the name of a plant (or animal) you can begin to learn how its story fits into the stories of other members of an ecological community and even into our own stories. You might even discover the poetry of its name. Although I’m not suggesting that the only way to appreciate plants (or anything) is to attach a name or label to them; I’m simply saying that names are a tool, and as such, can be used to build bridges or barriers. It’s all a matter of application.

In the presence of a skilled and knowledgeable interpreter, both the common and botanical names can be used to create an array of connections with the everyday lives of any visitor.

Secret Stories from the Green Kingdom
You might say that there is a whole galaxy of interpretive stories hidden in the names of plants—sunflower, moonflower, cosmos, star chickweed, and aster, to mention a few. Martha Barnette’s small but delightful book A Garden of Words is a valuable etymology resource on the origins of plant names and stories. According to Barnette, the name daisy is in reference to the sun being the “eye of the day” or day’s eyes. Aster is certainly a fitting name for a flower that resembles the celestial “blooms” of the night sky. Likewise the genus name Stellaria is appropriate for the star-like blossoms of the giant or star chickweed, Stellaria pubera. The edges of our eastern woodlands are laced in September with the white flowers of white snakeroot, judged by many to be the culprit in the death of Abraham Lincoln’s mother who died from milk sickness. Cows ingesting the plant passed a toxic chemical through their milk. This plant belongs to a genus in the aster family that is known to hybridize freely, and thus some authorities question which species is the felon in this story. Plant stories are often mysteries!

Rylie Marie is captivated by summer’s bounty.

Yaupon holly, with the colorful species name Ilex vomitoria, points to a story worth telling to a group of middle school students who may think they aren’t going to enjoy learning about binominal nomenclature, the scientific two-part classification system. I love introducing visitors to the soapwort growing at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Kentucky. This plant goes by several other common names, including bouncing bet and fullers herb, each name has its own collection of stories. Wort is from the Old English word wyrt, meaning plant, herb, or root. The name soapwort makes sense in view of the plant’s use as a delicate laundry agent. The plant was also called fullers herb, a holdover from the process of washing new carded wool or fulling. Even the scientific name, Saponaria officinalis, is redolent with meanings and stories. For starters, the genus provides a clue that the plant may contain saponins, agents that produce suds. The species name, officinalis, points to its history in the official apothecaries, the forerunners of our modern drug stores.

Even Weeds Have Stories to Tell
Examining most lawns reveals numerous interpretive stories “hidden in plain site.” Since weedy species are abundant and widely distributed, visitors are likely to reencounter these plants, and such repeated contact reinforces these stories. Dandelions are often one of the first plants noticed by children. The yellow suns are easily grasped by little hands, and children beam as they offer a bouquet to their mothers.

“Oh Sweetie, thank you, but that’s just a weed,” I recently overheard a mother say. Her response was gentler than many other responses to this floral offering I’ve heard over the years. However, the label of weed points to only a part of the story.

Author and naturalist Tavia Cathcart says, “The name dandelion comes from a French phrase dent de lion (tooth of the lion).” It’s easy for visitors and even little children to see a possible connection between this name and the sharp green teeth on the edges of dandelion leaves. Not native to the United States, but now naturalized widely, dandelions provide us with tales of travels, trials, and culinary creations, as well as myth, magic, and medicine that extend at least to the 10th and 11th centuries. Dandelions also provide high drama when viewed through the lens of warfare.

The Green Kingdom is Not Always the Peaceable Kingdom
In one of the best interpretive programs I’ve ever attended at an NAI National Workshop, Fran Blanchard and Mary Ann Bonnell reminded us that plants and their stories can be filled with all the drama of a battlefield. They also clearly conveyed their theme that plants aren’t passive in their defense of the homeland. Dressed in faux military regalia and representing the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Secretary of State, these creative interpreters staged a mock pre-battle press conference (complete with charts, maps, and graphs) from the viewpoint of plants. Workshop participants were quickly shunted into the role of press agents vying to ask questions of our illustrative leaders. Our capable commanders demonstrated numerous tactics employed by plants (chemical warfare, armored defenses of thorns and spines, etc.) in defense of their territory.

Years later, the universal concepts and relevant stories shared in that session have helped me see new stories in the land. I find new drama among the dandelions, as I now witness the turf battles and ongoing skirmishes between fastidious landowners and these “lions of the lawn.” I’ve realized that dandelions’ strategic arsenal not only includes prolific paratroopers, launched from familiar fluffy seed heads, but also underground taproots that lay claim to their territory with tenacity. Dandelions even appear to have a highly effective intelligence agency. They seem to know how low to keep their crowns, before counter attacks of land owners on lawn tanks (lawnmowers). Once the tanks have moved on, dandelions quickly raise their victory flags of yellow suns. Fortunately, universal concepts aren’t limited to those associated with warfare.

The Business of Blooming
When we describe our favorite spring wildflowers, we often use such words as delicate, fragile, and lovely. All of these descriptors are certainly accurate but they can belie the hidden tenacity of these so called genteel ladies of our spring woods. The real stories are a lot less tame and point towards some of the earliest business strategies in the “world’s oldest profession.” Contrary to popular belief, spring wildflowers usually don’t disappear from view because they succumb to freezing or frost. The real reason has more to do with the economics of ecology than frailty or frivolity. As much as their beauty may please us, spring wildflowers mean business, and most flowers are in the sex business.

Woodland wildflowers are supremely alluring and enterprising. They must take advantage of a small window of opportunity that opens in the woodlands just as daylight begins to lengthen but before the trees leaf out and block the sun. In other words, they only have a few weeks to complete their reproductive life cycle. It isn’t just the sun that they need. Survival of the next generation of viable seeds often depends on attracting pollinators that carry pollen (usually) from the male parts of other flowers. Similar to some human enterprises, flowers advertise their wares. Bright banners flap in the breeze like colorful flags at used car lots. Others offer rich perfumery. “Stop here,” they seem to say in their sexiest chemical lexicon. “We’ve got what you want, you’ve got what we need.” Some flowers like violets offer clearly marked runways so that insects can find their way to the pollen or nectar. Many flowers even offer landing pads. How’s that for customer service?

There is deception among the flowers. Some orchids imitate bees, and according to Sharman Apt Russell, author of The Anatomy of a Rose, there are some flowers that don’t live up to their end of the bargain. These trick pollinators into expending energy to visit them and offer nothing in return. Cooperation, competition, deception, and manipulation—flowers are not only full of melodrama, they are full of universal concepts.

The Green Story in a Nutshell
Mystery and reciprocity live at the heart of the plant kingdom. A squirrel buries hundreds of acorns and eats some of them. A tree grows from one of them, and its leaves are munched by a caterpillar. The caterpillar is eaten by a bird. The bird lands on the branch outside my window and sings. Sunlight has become not only root but also wing, not only leaf but song.

For many of us this past winter was rough and long, thus we welcomed spring with its unfurling fire of green light with even more gratitude than usual. Although it is late spring at this writing, the Green Kingdom is lush, lovely, and alive here in Kentucky. But even if you live in a part of the country where the seasonal changes are less obvious, there is no escaping the inevitable fact that all living things are woven into a fabric whose warp consists of various shades of green.

Green is the color represented by photosynthesis, the solar-powered process so necessary for the richness of life on earth. In the presence of sunlight, pigments of chlorophyll like millions of miniature alchemists turn invisible molecules of water and carbon dioxide into visible forms of grass, leaves, buds, flowers, and trees. This turning of the invisible to visible and back again lies at the heart of photosynthesis and thus at the heart of the living earth. As the original alchemists, plants tap into the power of the sun and supply the energy for the planet. As interpreters, we are constantly looking for ways to create this sort of magic as we strive to restore our connections to the places we love. Learn more stories from the Green Kingdom; share them with your friends, family, and visitors. Chlorophyll may be at the heart of photosynthesis, but relevant stories are at the heart of our interpretive efforts. The Green Kingdom provides interpreters with stories that may help us turn sunlight into song.

Resources for Connecting with Plant Stories
Barnette, Martha. 1992. A Garden of Words. New York: Times Books.

Cathcart, Tavia, and Dennis Horn. 2005. Wildflowers of Tennessee the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians. Auburn, Washington: Lone Pine Publishing.

Sanders, Jack. 1995. Hedgemaids and Fairy Candles. Camden Main: Ragged Mountain Press.

Sanders, Jack. 2003. The Secrets of the Wildflowers. Guilford, Connecticut: The Globe Pequot Press.

Wren Smith is the interpretive programs manager for Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Kentucky. Reach her at 502-955-8512, x227 or Wren@bernheim.org.