Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
HEARTLAND HARVEST GARDEN
The Garden of Earthly Delights
The new Heartland Harvest Garden offers foodie culture with visual flair.
BY SUSAN KRAUS
PHOTOGRAPH BY SHANE LUITJENS
AS THE LOCAL AND ORGANIC FOOD MOVEMENTS RISE IN POPularity, people are taking a good look at what’s on their plates. As well they should. After all, the view can be beautiful.
That’s the idea behind the Heartland Harvest Garden at Powell Gardens (www.powellgardens.org), a 915-acre botanic center southeast of Kansas City. Open since June, the 12-acre edible garden was inspired by the vegetable gardens of the French Château de Villandry.
Visitors explore a French country-style kitchen garden, seed-to-plate greenhouse, vineyard, an “Apple Celebration Court” featuring 54 varieties of apples, gardens designed by noted horticultural writers and a “Tutti-Fruitti Maze” of edible hedge plants. All in all, there are some 2,000 edible plants from around the world on display. The outdoor kitchen features cooking classes and chef demonstrations, with plenty of samples for all.
With foodie culture riding a new wave of popularity, the timing for this venture couldn’t have been better. “The public is more aware of nutrition. People want to know more about their food,” says executive director Eric Tschanz. “And with the current economy, people are thinking, many for the first time, of growing their own food. This garden shows just how much food can grow in small spaces.”
But being a source of information isn’t the garden’s only mission—it appeals to visitors’ aesthetic tastes as well.
“It’s a creatively conceived landscape, rich with vibrant colors, architectural shapes and contrasting textures,” Tschanz says. If visitors aren’t impressed with the design, however, ingredient stations interspersed throughout will win over their taste buds.
