Birthday Bash and Mud Day packs in a crowd

A celebrant at the Georgeson Birthday Bash and Mud Day makes bubbles.

The Georgeson Birthday Bash and Mud Day event drew more than 600 people to the Georgeson Botanical Garden on Sunday.

Mathew Carrick, the garden’s program director, said 649 people came, 100 more than last year. Kids made bowls and figures out of clay, poured paint on a spinning wheel to make patterns on paper, created bubbles and got their faces painted. Many visitors wandered through the garden and enjoyed the early summer flowers, but the mud pit drew the most attention. The bigger kids slid on clear plastic into a sizable mud pit in the Babula Children’s Garden and the younger kids splashed in an adjacent, shallower pit and made mud pies.

Garden manager Katie DiCristina said the mud pit is always a big draw. "I think it's just free play," she said. "Kids can go out there and play in the mud."

Action centered around the mud pits.

Many volunteers assisted with the event, including members of the Georgeson Botanical Garden Society, the Fairbanks Children's Museum and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. They sold herbs, served up birthday cake, painted faces, blew up balloons, ran the art stations and chaperoned the mud pit. Carrick said that the Fairbanks Community Food Bank also collected 133 pounds of food. The garden requested donations of food to celebrate the birthday of Charles Georgeson.

The event is sponsored by the Georgeson Botanical Garden Society, the Georgeson Botanical Garden and the School of Natural Resources and Extension.

A young artist splashes paint on a spinning wheel to create art.