Birthday Bash and Mud Day to take place June 24

Revelers enjoy a past Mud Day event.

The Georgeson Botanical Garden will combine two popular garden traditions on June 24 with its Birthday Bash and Mud Day.

The event will go from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the garden. From 10 a.m. to noon, the public is invited to enjoy the garden, educational booths, kids’ activities, harp music and birthday cake to celebrate the 167th birthday of Charles Georgeson. The garden’s namesake was an agronomist who founded experiment stations in Alaska  and stayed to conduct research.

From noon to 2 p.m., kids of all ages are invited to romp in the mud pit in the Babula Children’s Garden. The garden hosted Mud Day for several years but the event has been on hiatus for the past two years. Towels and clean clothes to wear afterward are recommended. Participants will be able to rinse with water.

Mud Day participants enjoy the mud pit in 2014.

Educational booths will include information on beekeeping, herbs and peonies, and a potter will demonstrate clay pottery making. Activities will include face painting, origami, dragonfly crafts and other games. The Boreal Charter School, the Fairbanks Children’s Museum and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are leading kids’ activities.

Admission is free but cans of food for the Fairbanks Community Food Bank are requested as a Georgeson birthday gift. The event is sponsored by the Georgeson Botanical Garden Society, the Georgeson Botanical Garden and the UAF School of Natural Resources and Extension.

The garden is located at the farthest west edge of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus at the Fairbanks Experiment Farm, 117 W. Tanana Drive. For more information, contact Mathew Carrick at 907-474-7222 or email gbgsociety@gmail.com.