CCB MEDIA PHOTO
CL Fornari
BARNSTABLE – The first annual Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival will take place July 10 to 19 this summer and organizers are already gathering people and groups from around the Cape to participate.
C.L. Fornari, a local gardening expert, thought of the idea of the festival and also the concept of having nonprofits all over the Cape benefit from the festival.
She said she chose hydrangeas to feature because they are, as she put it, “the signature flower of Cape Cod,” and having the festival in July would capture the flowers at their peak.
“We were saying Cape Cod needs a hydrangea festival. This is our signature plant. Everybody is crazy for it. We grow it well. This would be good for gardening. It would be good for garden centers. It would be good for business,” Fornari said.
She said she got the idea of the festival from a very successful garden festival that takes place in Buffalo, New York.
“That got me thinking, how can we do something similar on the Cape, where we have private gardens that are open to the public. But unlike Buffalo where it’s all free, my thought was, how can we use this to generate money for local nonprofits,” she said.
Hydrangeas are considered by some to be the signature flower of Cape Cod. The first annual Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival is scheduled to take place this July.
The chamber and the organizing committee for the festival have put together some guidelines for nonprofits that participate. For instance, the cost will be $5 per garden and each tour would have three or more gardens.
Fornari said the timing of the festival is perfect. “It is a period of time when Cape gardens are actually pretty darn gorgeous, because the annuals are in full flower by mid-July and the perennials such as day lilies are in full bloom, some of the roses are still flowering. So it makes sense in terms of what the gardens are doing as well,” she said.
The concept of the festival is that garden tours would take place all over the Cape during the 10 days of the festival, each one organized by a different nonprofit. The money raised for each garden tour would go toward that nonprofit.
There will also be special hydrangea-themed events and promotions. The Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce is on board to publicize the event nationally and even internationally.
One of the highlights of the Hydrangea Festival will be Hydrangeas 2015 Conference at Heritage Museums & Gardens in Sandwich July 14 to 16. This three-day gathering of noted hydrangea experts features a keynote address by Dr. Michael Dirr. The conference includes lectures by renowned hydrangea experts each morning, plus afternoon garden tours of significant private gardens on Cape Cod and tours of all garden areas at Heritage. The conference will conclude with an ice cream social and question and answer forum.
The Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce is holding a Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival information session on March 9 at Hyannis Golf Club from 3 to 4 p.m.
To listen to C.L. Fornari talk about the festival, click below.
