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Harry Potter and the ‘Plants and Potions Tour’
By Alyssa | October 3, 2008
We had a new report from The Washington Post, that Green Spring Gardens in Fairfax County, Virginia, has a new, special Harry Potter garden tour. Adrienne Staab and Ayla Reith, horticulturalists as well as Harry Potter fans, created the 90-minute Harry Potter’s Plants and Potions Tour for school-age children, where they take them around the fabled yew and holly trees that gave their wood for our famous wizards’ wand. Also, the children are exposed to the smell of lavender, coaxing them to think of Lavender Brown, Harry’s classmate and Ron’s first girlfriend.
The program is the Fairfax County Park Authority’s answer to a uniquely 21st-century question: how to engage a generation of children whose vegetables come from the supermarket rather than from the garden and whose lawns are increasingly cultivated by grounds crews rather than their parents?
“They’re so estranged from nature,” says Cindy Gustafson, children’s education coordinator for the garden. “We really want to drag them away from those digitized screens and show them the basis of life that’s right outside their front door.”
Dressed as “funky New Age witches with cheesy capes and floppy hats”, “Professors” Adrienne and Ayla tell the children J.K. Rowling may have chosen the yew tree for Lord Voldemort’s wand because that particular tree has been associated with immortality in the past. And of course, all Harry Potter fans know a holly tree supplied the wood for the wand that “chose” The Boy Who Lived.
The children learn about plants and spells at the same time. One example is the herb echinacea which can help strengthen the immune system for “muggles”. This includes brewing potions such as “blast-ended skrewt slime” and “serpentine oil”.
“We tell them how muggles use it,” Reith says, “and then we tell them wizards can just point their wands and yell, ‘echinacea immunus ,’ ” to get the same effect.
The Harry Potter’s Plants and Potions Tour is scheduled for this Saturday at 12:30pm and Saturday, October 11 at 2:00 pm. The cost is $10. For reservations or information, call 703-642-5173 or click here.
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