As an artist with over 30 years of exhibitions in the Philadelphia region, Ann has recently become interested in exhibiting outdoors as her current work is focused on an increased attention to the natural world and its preservation. The series of paintings exhibited at Bartram’s Garden include many local insects, an often overlooked but vital part in the balance of nature.

Ann writes, “The magic of fireflies and the summer music of cicadas and katydids are part of the series. All of the pieces attempt to move beneath consciousness into our core of being that moves deeply back towards our creation. There is reverence, joy, fear, and awe. There is an urgent and impossible pull to grasp the interconnectedness of all life. With this, my most recent work has moved to touch other beings we share the earth with.”

Guardians of the Earth will live in the Garden through October, but if you’d like to bring one of these pieces home with you, the originals are available for purchase! Reach out to Ann at www.annhwilson.com.

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Fall into Bartram’s Garden

By Maitreyi Roy

Every season is beautiful here at Bartram’s Garden, but there’s something especially inviting about the fall: I love to see the bustling return of school groups, the joy of our autumn celebrations like Indigenous People’s Day and Harvest Fest, and the transformation in the landscape as growers here and throughout the neighborhood prepare for cooler temperatures, fall planting, and abundant harvests. It is a wonderful time of year to gather with friends and neighbors to enjoy the beauties of the season. We are so excited to share our hard work with you, and we hope to see you in the Garden soon!

When you visit, make sure to enjoy all the colors of the fall: check out the bloom calendar in this issue or on our website––or ask at the Welcome Center!––to see what’s in season now throughout these 50 acres. The vibrant flowers of Chrysanthemums, Autumn Crocus, and Franklinia are complemented by equally colorful berries from plants like American Beauty berry and Hearts-A-Burstin’, which support the many birds in our ecosystem. And speaking of birds: fall is migration season, so remember to look up! Binoculars are available to borrow in the Welcome Center, and you can check out the bird sightings in this issue or online to keep track of what you’re spotting.

And, of course, there are the trees! As the weather gets colder, you can find me on ginkgo watch, waiting for the tall, historic Ginkgo Tree to turn a magnificent, glowing yellow. It always seems to happen overnight, like a beacon of much-needed sunshine just when I need it amidst the transition to winter. Fall is also a wonderful season for planting if you are looking to add to the ecosystem of your own home: we are excited to partner with TreePhilly to provide free yard trees for residents in the 19143 and 19142 zip codes, and our ROOTS Tree Crew students will be working with the Southwest Tree Tenders to help expand and strengthen the tree canopy throughout our neighborhood.

There’s plenty to do at Bartram’s Garden this season: stretch your legs during a walk or a bike ride on the Bartram’s Mile Trail with WeWalkPHL or the Bicycle Coalition, create your own masterpiece at an art gathering, learn from the natural world with an herbalism class or a SWWAG workshop, or join us to celebrate, reflect, and share at our upcoming fall festivals. And, of course, we hope we’ll see you in the Garden, making the space your own: it’s a perfect season for a picnic or a walk through the landscape. We hope you’ll try it all! We can’t wait to see you here soon.

Maitreyi Roy is the Executive Director at Bartram’s Garden.

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A Never-Failing Friend: Reflections from a Youth Tree Tender

By Mikaya Woodard

Hi, my name is Mikaya Woodard and I love being a Tree Tender because trees are beautiful. Dealing with trees, personally, it helps me with my personal life and well-being, taking my time, practicing patience, and freedom.

In the Fall, I love to be under the Maple tree because of their leaves and they produce syrup. They can live a long time, from 100 to 400 years old. Sitting near a tree or around it helps me feel relief. Trees help us with stress. They comfort us and provide food and wood. They clean our air and filter our water. They take up carbon dioxide and provide us with oxygen. They are a never-failing friend.

By being a Tree Tender helps me better myself by watching who I hang with, staying on honor roll, being around honest and caring people. And it brings me what I need the most: peace and happiness.

Mikaya is a youth intern in the ROOTS Tree Crew at Bartram’s Garden and is a member of the Southwest Tree Tenders.

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The brilliant colors that leaves take on in fall is one of the most familiar and beloved aspects of the season. As the days grow shorter and colder––not ideal conditions for continued plant growth––the green chemical chlorophyll, which allows leaves to turn sunlight and water into food for themselves, breaks down within the leaves.

What remains are the yellow, red, and orange hues that make fall trees so beautiful. But what causes these colors? Much like chlorophyll lends leaves their green color, other chemical compounds in the leaves provide the colors of autumn.

• YELLOW: Besides chlorophyll, other chemicals constantly present in leaves include flavonoids and carotenoids. These chemicals help with essential leaf functions and protect the chlorophyll from sun damage but are hidden from view until the chlorophyll breaks down in fall. One type of carotenoid, called lutein, is also responsible for the yellow color of egg yolks!
• ORANGE: Carotenoids are also responsible for orange coloration, perhaps most famously in carrots; the word “carotenoid” actually comes from the Latin word for carrot. (Say “carotenoid” out loud and you’ll notice a familiar vegetable in the word!) Carotenoids start breaking down around the same time as chlorophyll, but they do so much more slowly, which is why their orange is still visible after the green from chlorophyll fades.
• RED & PURPLE: Red to purple hues in fall leaves come from a group of chemicals called anthocyanins. Unlike chlorophyll, carotenoids, and flavonoids, anthocyanins are generally not present in leaves during the growing season. They start forming in late summer and early fall, as trees begin to draw nutrients from their leaves up into the tree itself. Their function isn’t well understood; one theory is that they protect leaves from sun damage as trees drain their leaves. Lycopene, one type of anthocyanin, also helps give tomatoes their red color.

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Bringing Back Botanical Wreaths

By Katie Jacoby

On a chilly March morning while I was pruning the American Wisteria vine, a thought began to take shape. These long twining stems could be saved from the compost and transformed into elegant handmade wreaths. They would become the base of our botanical wreath collection, a new addition to our Handmade Holiday wreath sales each November.

The abundance of renewable natural material is everywhere you look, and with a cool dark space to dry our harvest, we hit the ground running. Throughout the growing season, our horticulture team collects and dries grasses, flowers, and seed heads to preserve their natural beauty.

Steel blue globe thistles, hung to dry right before they bloom, retain their color extraordinarily. When shelled, the Lunaria plant’s seed pods look like graceful opaline ovals. The best time to harvest phragmites grass flowers is in late November when their inflorescence is at peak floof.

This practice is intended to honor a more reparative relationship with the natural world. In the past our team has ventured outside of the Garden to harvest evergreen materials for holiday wreath-making. As we begin our shift towards becoming more ecologically responsible, the reality is that our past practices have not always contributed to a sustainable future. In fact, pruning evergreen material is not always able to be done in a way to encourage regeneration of lost limbs. Poor pruning techniques, inopportune timing of pruning, and even the act of transporting evergreen boughs can lead to the spread of unwanted insect populations and disease as well as unhealthy healing processes for these trees.

Dried botanical material offers a much longer shelf life and when cared for properly can provide everlasting beauty. Harvesting exclusively from the Garden allows folks to bring a bit of this landscape home with them and celebrate the many seasons of wonder Bartram’s Garden offers while reducing our carbon footprint.

Bartram’s Garden appreciates your support of best practices for a better future of our region’s biodiversity. As we realign our efforts towards renewable harvests, we plan on sharing these botanical beauties with our annual wreath-making and sale. We hope you’ll join us to celebrate the beauties of the season!

Katie Jacoby is a horticulturalist at Bartram’s Garden.

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• Barefoot Bella
• Nana’s Hook
• Light It Up Candles
• Aisha Toombs
• Soap by Alana
• The Bearded Carver
• Truly Pure and Natural
• Bayt Arij
• Fifth of a Farm Creations
• Soothe x Smooth
• Diana Dinh
• Stacey Woodson
• Instar Apiaries
• Sophie Strachan
• Chi Muse
• Jasbennsart
• Only in the Forest
• Sunniewallflower
• The Random Tea Room
• Serena Niesley
• Honey Blis
• Odabu
• EarlGreyHandmade
• Nyambi Naturals
• Nicole Rodrigues
• Floret Vansguard

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TrailOff is a new, cutting-edge app featuring 10 original audio dramas, totally free-to-download, that unfold on  Circuit Trails across the Philadelphia region. This audio storytelling app puts YOU in the center of the drama! Get out onto a trail and let a 360° world swirl around you. Literally step into the shoes of characters as they run from monsters, uncover clues to mysteries or adventure into unknown secrets from the past in stories synced to you in real-time!

Created by Swim Pony and the PA Environmental Council (PEC), this FREE project aims to diversify the stories we imagine when we think about nature. TrailOff uses your phone’s technology to transport you into an augmented reality world that syncs to your movements as you walk a trail. Each story is uniquely crafted for its site, written by incredible local authors who will explore the way you think about
taking a walk outside. This is NOT your grandma’s nature trail!

This structured 1-mile walk will follow the new Afrofuturist audio drama Chronicles Of Asylum by Philadelphia author and artist Li Sumpter of MythMediaStudios, available for free download through TrailOff:

Set in future Philadelphia circa 2045 on the eve of a major cosmic event, Chronicles of Asylum follows savvy young journalist Liliquoi Brown as she investigates an otherworldly urban myth in hopes of finding two missing visitors to a refugee camp on the Schuylkill River. Exploring survival and sacrifice, home and exile, humanity’s fate and hope for the future, Chronicles follows the path of this unexpected trailblazer.

The story walk will take approximately one hour but can accommodate participants moving at a slower pace.

How To Use

To use TrailOff download the app to your phone, explore the 10 stories, and pick a trail you want to try. In the app, you can download a story and get directions to the trail by car or public transport. Once you arrive hit “Begin” and start walking! During your story, follow the path and directions from the app. If you accidentally stray from the path, a sound will let you know you’ve gone off route. The story will follow YOUR pace, so take as long as you like to explore. If you need to leave, you can always return and pick up where you left off.

After finishing a trail, you’ll even get some bonus features to keep you busy on the walk back!

TrailOff Guided AfroFuturist Story Walk at Bartram’s Garden

You can try a guided TrailOff Walk at Bartram’s Garden during our first Family Outdoor Movie Night of the summer on Friday, June 24, 6-7 pm. This structured 1-mile walk will follow the new Afrofuturist audio drama Chronicles Of Asylum by Philadelphia author and artist Li Sumpter of MythMediaStudios, available for free download now.

   Set in future Philadelphia circa 2045 on the eve of a major cosmic event, Chronicles of 

                                                    Asylum follows savvy young journalist Liliquoi Brown as she investigates an otherworldly

urban myth in hopes of finding two missing visitors to a refugee camp on the Schuylkill River.

Exploring survival and sacrifice, home and exile, humanity’s fate and hope for the future,

                                                    Chronicles follows the path of this unexpected trailblazer.

The story walk will take approximately one hour but can accommodate participants moving at a slower pace, and will finish with a Q&A with the author. Register for this event here.

To learn more about TrailOff, visit its website.

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The film was first released in late 2019 by Eric Breitenbach (director), Scott Auerbach (director of photography), and Dorinda G. Dallmayer (writer), and has been broadcast across the country on public television beginning in 2020. It is currently free and available to view via the South Carolina ETV website. Also available is a review/interview of the documentary by Doug Carlson and Dorinda G. Dallmayer in The Georgia Review. Links to both the film and the review can be found below.

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Aqua Marooned! is a card game created by Philly-based immersive experience company Swim Pony that encourages humor and emotional connection with the flora and fauna of the Lenapehoking region. Bartram’s Garden is one of 20 different regional environmental centers where it premiered at this spring; each location is connected to the Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River (AWE) and has its own unique, location-specific card deck.

How to Play

Though Aqua Marooned! takes inspiration from traditional party games like Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity, this card game isn’t one meant to be played sitting at a table indoors.  The game’s beautifully-illustrated cards cast players in groups of three or more as extraterrestrial explorers sent to explore earth’s mysterious “watersphere”, i.e. at your participating AWE nature center, park, or wildlife refuge.

Using vibrant pictures of plants, animals, and the environment, players are sent on a “mission” that playfully invites players to call on their powers of observation, inventiveness, or wit. Card challenges include things that ask players to get creative (Find a dead thing and give it a heartfelt eulogy. Most heartfelt wins.), use their bodies (Race to the nearest body of water), and reflect on the natural world (Define what “nature” is and is not). Though suitable for ages 12 and up, the game is aimed specifically at teens and adults.

Aqua Marooned!’s cards are designed especially for the 23 Centers in the AWE Alliance but can also be played anywhere one finds the outdoors. In addition to the core deck of cards, 20 participating AWE sites have developed expansion decks featuring additional missions that can be folded into the basic game with content unique to their sites. Swim Pony has also developed a super-sized Lenape expansion deck, created in collaboration with a circle of local Lenape advisors, to give players an opportunity to delve into the Indigenous perspectives on the land as well. For more information about where to find the game or the outreach events programmed for this fall visit the Lenapehoking~Watershed website, Facebook, or  Instagram for dates, times, and locations.

Aqua Marooned! at Bartram’s Garden

Visit the Garden’s Welcome Center, open every day 9AM-4PM, to grab your FREE Bartram’s Garden Aqua Marooned! deck and start your journey. Swim Pony will also be at the first 2022 Family Outdoor Movie Night at the Garden on Friday, June 24, 2022, with decks and more information about the game.

Aqua Marooned! was conceived by Adrienne Mackey, founder and artistic director of Swim Pony, an experience design company that develops innovative, immersive experiences of play. During the course of its three-year development, the company collaborated with illustrator/graphic designers Meg Lemieur and Bri Barton, co-writer Brad Wrenn, representatives from 19 different AWE Centers, and a Lenni-Lenape Advisory Circle led by Trinity Norwood, Project Advisor for the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation. 

More about Lenapehoking~Watershed Art Project: The L~W Art Project is a wide-ranging, multifaceted art project that wants to introduce Lenapehoking residents to their watershed. A program of the Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River (AWE), this initiative winds its way through the landscapes and waterways of the Delaware River Watershed in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. Aqua Marooned! is one of two innovative and completely unique artist-driven projects activating the AWE environmental education centers as part of Lenapehoking~Watershed. The other is Water Spirit, a series of plant-based sculptures by Sarah Kavage that serve as focal points for events and community gatherings. The name, “Lenapehoking~Watershed, a place for water, art and culture” was chosen after consulting with citizens of our local Lenni Lenape Nations. “Lenapehoking” is a place name that means “the land of the Lenape people.” Foremost, as this is an initiative about the land and the water, the L~W team acknowledges Indigenous cultures’ environmental stewardship as critical. Lenapehoking~Watershed offers multiple opportunities for inspiration, refreshment, and learning. Encouraging others to discover new things, meet new people at outdoor cultural gatherings, and enjoy solitary meditations on art and nature.

Lead support for the Lenapehoking~Watershed is provided by the William Penn Foundation, with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Barra Foundation, the Delaware Division for the Arts, the Joseph Robert Foundation, and the Velocity Fund. 

About Alliance for Watershed Education: The Alliance for Watershed Education of the Delaware River is a regional initiative of twenty-three partnering environmental education centers that is funded and supported by the William Penn Foundation. Each of these centers is located along the Circuit Trail or a major connecting trail, and on waterways throughout the Delaware River Watershed in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Through joint programming like the annual River Days events, and shared best practices, the centers aim to increase their collective impact within the watershed and its communities. 

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Visitors with an ACCESS card can join a house or garden tour for just $2 per person, for up to 4 people total. In addition, we are offering $2 tickets to many of our programs for ACCESS card holders. Keep an eye on our upcoming events for more information about how to purchase ACCESS tickets.

We continue to offer discounted $5 program and event tickets to our neighbors in Southwest Philadelphia. For more information about our Southwest neighbor discount or our Art-Reach partnership, reach out to our Arts & Culture Programs Manager, Zach Webber, at zwebber@bartramsgarden.org or 215-729-5281 ext. 112

Our partnership with Art-Reach is just one way in which we strive to create room for all at Bartram’s Garden. You support this work by donating to our Room for All fund, or by becoming a member.

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