Carving out tradition
Myriad Gardens transforms into Pumpkinville
After going west last year for its annual Pumpkinville fall festival, the Myriad Botanical Gardens will boast a distinctive Boston accent this autumn.
“We have a lighthouse made of pumpkins,” said Leslie Spears, director of marketing and public relations for the gardens. “There’s a lot of apples … and our T-shirts say ‘Wicked awesome.’”
Following 2017’s Western theme festival, the seventh-annual Pumpkinville is modeled on a New England pumpkin town. A popular feature of the Children’s Garden has even been converted into a cranberry bog.
“I moved here from New England … so I was very familiar with the whole New England charms of lighthouses and cider and covered
bridges that we have in our Pumpkinville this year,” said Myriad Gardens Foundation Executive Director Maureen Heffernan, who was previously executive director of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.
A popular downtown Oklahoma City celebration of the harvest season, Pumpkinville, presented by OGE Energy Corp., opens Friday in the Children’s Garden of the Myriad Gardens and continues through Oct. 21. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
“There are always lots of surprises from our staff,” Spears said. “They start meeting in July or even June and they bring to the table theme ideas … and I just feel like their ideas are always so fresh and clever.”
Fundraising festivities
More than 16,000 pumpkins, hundreds of gourds and a cornucopia of fall foliage deck out the popular Children’s Gardens during Pumpkinville.
During Pumpkinville, admission to the Children’s Gardens is still free for Myriad Gardens members but $8 per person for nonmembers. Children 2 and younger are admitted free.
Fundraisers such Pumpkinville help keep admission free to the downtown OKC green space the rest of the year, she said.
The nonprofit Myriad Gardens Foundation depends on corporate sponsorships, donations and membership sales to fund the more than 400 events that take place there each year, including popular free offerings like the Sonic Summer Movies series and Dancing in the Gardens. Although the gardens receive city funding, Spears said the foundation generates more than half of the green space’s budget and is working to bring in more revenue.
“Pumpkinville is our biggest fundraiser,” she said. “Our goal is to sell memberships, and we do really well there.”
A family membership costs $65 and entitles as many as eight members of the same household to enter Pumpkinville and the spring storybook festival at no additional
cost. Plus, family memberships provide yearround free admission to the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory.
Special features
This year, Pumpkinville tickets or family memberships come with free rides during the fall festival on the newly installed Mo’s Carousel, formerly a familiar landmark at Crossroads Mall/Plaza Mayor Mall. Response to the carousel has been so enthusiastic that the nonprofit has launched a family-plus membership level that costs $100 and includes free year-round merrygo-round rides, Heffernan said.
An array of activities will be offered each day during Pumpkinville, Spears said.
“We’ll have story times daily, face painting daily,” she said. “We have the Pumpkinville Express Train back on Saturdays and Sundays. And on Mondays and Tuesdays, we’ve added a Mommy and Me Mondays and Tiny Tots Tuesdays where they can do extra activities geared towards children that age.”
Pumpkinville will celebrate its opening day with sensory night, an event tailored for families with children with special needs, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Friday. There will be no loud music and smaller crowds.
“We try to do something for a variety of people and ages and needs,” Spears said, adding that some activities are free with Pumpkinville admission and others cost extra and require preregistration.
Although the festival is aimed primarily for families with young children, she said adults can sign up for classes on lifestyle photography or take part in Friday lunchtime Tarot card readings. Dog lovers can register their pets for the Spooky Pooch Parade on the final day of Pumpkinville.
The New England theme is getting a dash of movie magic with a Sanderson Sisters’ Inn display, complete with a potion-ready herb spiral garden, inspired by the 1993 cult favorite “Hocus Pocus.” Harry Potter fans can check out the Oct. 13 workshop titled “Mandrake Madness and Other Plants of The Wizarding World.”
For Spears, watching families celebrate the season together in Pumpkinville is heartwarming.
“You’ll see the stayat-home mom meet up with the dad who’s working in downtown — or vice versa, the stayat-home dad meet up with the working mom — and they have the kids and they go through Pumpkinville together on the lunch hour. We’ll have food trucks, so their either bring their own lunch or eat from the food trucks,” she said. “It’s really cool to see.”