Just when you notice you are losing headway on all those pounds you wanted to trim right after new year's day, and just when your other new year's resolutions are starting to look a little too ambitious, along comes another chance.  It's called Lunar New Year.

 

Driven by the East and Southeast Asian lunar calendar, this celebration happens at a different time each winter.  And each year there is a different animal that is said to typify the character of the year to come.  There is a regular, revolving series of 12 such creatures, and this year it's the year of the Rat.

 

The Rat is the first of the series and opens up the cycle, so it's good to begin new things in the year of the Rat.

 

So what does a botanical garden have to do with dogs, monkeys, pigs, rats, etc?  In this case, we have the pleasure of supplying one of the key ingredients in the successful celebration of a healthy, wealthy and prosperous transition to the next year - no matter what animal the new ruler is.  It's plants and flowers…beautiful, colorful - preferably red - Spring flowers.

 

On February 2 from 10:00 until 3:00 in the County Fair Building, just inside the park off the 9th Ave and Lincoln Way entrance, there will be the most astonishing offering of live and cut flowers and budding fruit tree branches - and Chinese acrobats, food, lion and folkloric dancers, children's calligraphy, and really great lunar new year food specialties. 

 

It's a fun and beautiful family circus designed to help households all over the city procure the essential flowers to welcome the new year, which arrives later that week on February 7.

 

This is a great time to visit the garden, because also on Saturday, February 2, is our first plant sale of the new year at our nursery.  So join us, enjoy the fun, come home with some new plants, and think about preparing your home for lunar new year!

 

Gung Hay Fat Choy!