Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Spring Fest will be held Sunday, May 4. Admission to the Garden is free all day, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Visitors can stroll the 24-acre grounds, enjoy the spring blooming bulbs and trees, visit the Visitor Center Gift Shop, and attend the Horticulture Certificate Program graduation, followed by a reception hosted by the Herb Associates, a volunteer group that, for more than six decades, has created herbal products from the Garden’s 1937 herb garden. Members of the Herb Associates will serve an assortment of herb-infused cookies and Mai Bowle, a May wine punch (see related story).

The day also includes plenty of kids’ activities. There will be horseback rides, face painting and lawn games, including a traditional Maypole dance. The award-winning arts ensemble Arm-of-the-Sea Theater will perform in our outdoor amphitheater, from 1 to 2 p.m. Tghis is a ticketed event (members $25/nonmembers $40). Through live music, puppets and masks, the theater company will explore relations between humans and the life-support networks of the planet. (Limited space so please reserve your tickets below!)

Hilary Collingwood, from Moonflower Farm in Sheffield, Mass., will lead a youth workshop on making flower crowns using in-season blooms.

Specialty foods and additional drinks will be available for purchase throughout the day, and BBG will celebrate the graduates from the Horticulture Certificate Program and the Advanced Certificate in Horticulture and Design Program for their own ceremony that afternoon. 

Always held on the first Sunday of May, our spring celebration also honors Roy Boutard, the Swedish horticulturist who came to the United States from Canada in the 1950s after graduating from England’s Royal Horticultural Society Gardens. He served as the Garden’s venerable executive director from 1955 to 1985. Boutard wrote a regular gardening column for The Berkshire Eagle and hosted a gardening show on WBEC. Under his direction, the Garden expanded its grounds and educational offerings and won numerous gardening awards.