SALT LAKE CITY — The idea is to promote peace, but sheesh! The last few years it’s been too peaceful.
We’re talking about the International Peace Gardens Festival, an event that’s been held annually on the west side of Salt Lake City for 66 years straight.
The 2014 festival, No. 67, is scheduled this coming Saturday, Sept. 20, and if you haven’t heard about it you are not alone. Last year about 200 people showed up, total. The year before it was about the same. Attendance has been steadily dropping for a couple of decades.
Charlene Badger, the resident head florist who makes the gardens so beautiful, isn’t sure why. Her best guess is a shrug and, “Life keeps getting busier, I guess; there’s so much other stuff to do.”
Hopefully it isn’t because peace and beauty are going out of style.
To try to reverse the trend, the festival has changed its starting date, switching from the third Saturday in August to the third Saturday in September. It’s cooler, the kids are off vacation and back in school, and there’s no conflicting holiday. Maybe that will bring the crowds back.
While Charlene, who works for the Salt Lake City Parks Department, and her staff of seven seasonal workers grow the flowers and trim the grounds, the festival’s program is organized by a committee composed of past presidents of the Salt Lake Council of Women. Irene Wiesenberg has been festival chairwoman for 11 years now.
“It’s such a beautiful event. We have a program that starts at noon and runs till 5. There’s dancing and singing from the various countries and ethnic food for sale,” says Irene, “but there’s no entrance fee to get in. It’s free to the public.”
She adds with some exasperation, “There's a lot of people in the valley who don’t even know the gardens exist.”
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The idea for the International Peace Gardens came about in 1939 just as Europe was going to war. Utah’s centennial was coming up in 1947 and someone suggested that the various countries represented in the state should each plant a garden to reflect their different cultures. All those gardens standing side-by-side would promote peace by celebrating both our diversity and our togetherness.
A dozen acres next to the Jordan River on the west side of Jordan Park (900 West and 1000 South) were turned over by Salt Lake City to the cause.
In 1947 the first garden was finished, the American garden, just in time for the Utah centennial, and the first peace festival was held. America’s two opponents in World War II finished their gardens next. Japan’s was dedicated in 1950 and Germany’s in 1951. A host of other countries followed — 27 in all — until all available land was claimed by 1999. Tonga, Scotland and France got the last three plots.
A stroll through the peace gardens is an extremely inexpensive trip around the world. At various stops you can see, among other sights, the Matterhorn (Switzerland), the Eiffel Tower (France), a Mayan god (Mexico), a mermaid (Denmark), a farm cottage (Sweden), two pagodas (China), a Celtic cross (Ireland), monuments to Margaret Thatcher (England) and Mahatma Gandhi (India) and the Greek Parthenon (which, appropriately enough, is still under construction).
And then there are the flowers. Thousands of flowers. Maybe millions. Charlene and her crew start planting them in May with an eye on having them peak precisely on festival day.
There are 57 flowerbeds placed among the 27 country gardens, and many change in shape and variety every year. Last year everyone entering the festival was treated to flowers arranged into the shape of huge peace sign — a tribute to tranquility and the flower children. This year it’s a huge butterfly.
As an added bonus, all of the many water features in the park are turned on for the festival. That’s it. Just for the one day. The rest of the year they’re turned off because they waste too much water.
“All the water drains into the Jordan River and it’s gone,” explains Charlene. “When they first built the ponds and canals and other water features there were no recycle pumps. You know, back when water was cheap.”
She’s hearkening back to a different time, when there wasn’t quite so much going on and the International Peace Gardens Festival was the thing to do at the end of a Salt Lake summer.
Maybe this year it will be again.
Lee Benson's About Utah column runs Mondays. Email: benson@deseretnews.com