Happy Birthday, Spring Giant!

Tulsa Botanic Garden‘s annual DIG: Day in the Garden celebration/fundraiser is definitely one to mark on your calendars! Joss and I have attended the past two years, and love it. It has all your favorites: face painting, balloon animals, a photo booth, food…with the addition of fun garden-themed activities like painting pots and planting herbs! It is an annual fundraiser for TBG’s Children’s Discovery Garden, in the form of a birthday celebration for the garden.

Despite an ominous forecast (and a morning deluge), DIG 2019 went on as planned last Saturday evening, May 18. I was nervous about the drive, since the roads were wet and it is slightly “out in the country,” but it ended up being just fine. Other than the brief drive from the fence to the parking lot, everything is paved, and my fears of driving through inches-deep puddles or getting stuck in the mud came to naught. Although I probably did drive several MPH under the speed limit out in the hills, heh.

By the way, if you’ve never been to Tulsa Botanic Garden, the landscape out in hilly northwest Tulsa is gorgeous! So much natural beauty before you even get to the garden. And the garden itself is situated around a large lake, with plenty of room for future additions. One of my favorite views in Tulsa is when you drive out of the garden towards the main road–at the top of the hill, you get an incredible view of downtown Tulsa to which, despite my efforts, my iphone just cannot do justice.

Kudos to the Tulsa Botanic Garden staff for being flexible despite the iffy forecast–they simply moved all the activities indoors to the Mabee Grange, a 4500-foot event space that can also be rented for private events like weddings, etc. They also had a large tent set up with tables for eating. Certain activities, like the balloon art and the Betty Blue Photo Bus, were able to take place outside anyway because thankfully the rain let up just in time for the evening event, and it ended up being a glorious evening. The only activity (to my knowledge) that had to be cancelled altogether was the train–and this was probably Joss’s favorite part of last year’s event! Thankfully, I hadn’t hyped it up to him beforehand, so he didn’t miss it. The ground was just too soggy for a train ride!

Joss was so excited by his “blue kitty” balloon and matching facepaint, both provided by Tulsa Balloons–who has, incidentally, won TulsaKids’ Family Favorites: Favorite Birthday Party Entertainer for the past several years! They are able to make and paint pretty much anything a child asks for!

New this year to DIG was Calliope Youth Circus–they provided stilts, hoops and aerial silks performances (by youth performers), and brought interactive elements for kids as well, like a low tight rope, spinning plates, hula hoops, etc. They definitely added to the carnival atmosphere!

Garden-themed events included painting pots (Joss spent all of three minutes doing this) and then, once the pot had dried, choosing one of four types of herbs to plant in your pot, which you could leave on a table for safekeeping until ready to leave. Joss chose a small sage plant, so fingers crossed we don’t kill it!!

Another feature of DIG is an impressive buffet; I don’t remember what last year’s featured, but this year included 3-4 different types of barbecued meat, along with baked beans, a cheese/olive tray, etc. And a popcorn buffet!

Last year, DIG took place on the lawn by the lake and in the Discovery Garden itself. Since the activities moved to the Mabee Grange, we had to leave them behind in order to explore the Discovery Garden–which is likely where we spent the majority of our time because Joss adores the Tree Fort. And of course, we had to pay our respects to the Spring Giant!

So beautiful!

This year’s DIG tickets were $40 for TBG member adults and $60 for non-member adults; kids 12 and under got in free with an Adult ticket, but needed to be registered.

Let us know in the comments if you went to DIG this year, and what you love most about Tulsa Botanic Garden!