Michelle Torkelson
The hard lemon iced tea and watermelon mojito are both made with freshly picked lemon mint and edible lemon star marigold flowers from Olbrich’s gardens.
Modern times have moved us further from the natural world and pushed our noses closer to our phones. Olbrich Gardens’ Garden to Glass series is a hands-on tour of the gardens that aims to connect people with plants in a very sense-based way. The tour ends with the serving of a botanical cocktail, made with (or inspired by) plants from the gardens.
Olbrich developed Garden to Glass with Destination Madison, an arm of the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau. It’s meant to attract tourists and longtime residents alike.
“We knew sustainability and environmentalism would have to be a focus” for the outdoor tour, says program specialist Mike Gibson.
This summer, through the end of September, Olbrich is featuring an outdoor version of Garden to Glass called “Iconic Olbrich.” The series launched in October 2018 as an indoor tour called “Totally Tropical.” (Those will kick in again this October.)
I join a group of 13 for a tour on Aug. 8. Gibson tells us that we will taste, touch and smell as part of this full sensory experience, discovering answers to such questions as “Does popcorn cassia really smell like its namesake?”
“Imagine it’s 100 years ago, we are getting our feet wet,” says Gibson as we look toward Lake Monona. Madison lawyer Michael B. Olbrich noticed natural areas were being destroyed by industry, so in 1920 he purchased the land the gardens now sit on for $40,000. “He planned this garden alongside landscape architect O.C. Simonds, who designed Madison’s Tenney Park and Lincoln Park in Chicago, among many others.”
While standing beneath shade-providing grapevines, we learn that Josephine Brasci emigrated from Sicily to the United States in 1914. She cultivated heirloom grapevines at her Greenbush neighborhood home. Her house was razed as part of redevelopment on Regent Street in the early 1960s. But the vines were saved by a UW-Madison botany professor, planted in Bay View and eventually gifted to Olbrich in 1993. A faded brick bears her name and lies beneath the very vines she nurtured.
Throughout the 1.5-hour tour we interact with 18 different plants, learning culinary and medicinal uses as we smell, touch and taste our way through the herb garden. It’s fun — we hop stream rocks to the carnivorous plants corridor and stroll past beehives.
At many stops we are reminded of three things we can do to protect pollinator habitats: plant diverse plants from early spring through late fall; leave the plants in the ground through the winter; don’t use any “cides.”
At the eucalyptus tree, a small glass bottle of eucalyptus oil is passed around. Some in the tour rub small amounts on their skin to ward off mosquitoes. The temperature changes beneath our feet as we move from hot brick to cool limestone gravel. We discover firsthand that sensitive plants close up to human touch and the brush of insect legs, but not to raindrops. The plant known as lamb’s ear is fried and served in Brazil as a dish called lambari, and can also be used as a natural bandage.
Gibson hands us snacking cucumbers from Olbrich’s small but mighty vegetable garden (one ton of produce a year is donated to area food pantries). “I would eat cucumbers if they always tasted like this,” says one of my tourmates. We also chew on bright red, raisin-like goji berries just outside of the herb garden.
As the sun sets, we head to the rose tower for our botanical cocktails.
The cocktails feature a local spirit called Domeloz Somel, distilled from local honey. Leaves from freshly picked Olbrich lemon mint are crushed by hand and added to the glass, along with lemon or watermelon juice and ice. Both the watermelon mojito and hard iced tea are garnished with edible lemon star marigold flowers from Olbrich’s herb garden. Gibson hopes to increase the share of Olbrich-sourced ingredients. The drinks are paired with lavender-infused chocolate from the Chocolate Caper of Oregon, Wisconsin.
Would our ancestors gawk at us paying $25 to learn how to interact with plants? Maybe. But I’m at peace with my botanical mojito in one hand and chocolate in the other, basking in the golden evening air instead of the blue glow of my smartphone.
Mocktails are available with advance request, as are private tours. Outdoor Garden to Glass tours take place on Aug. 22, Sept. 5 and Sept. 22. The indoor tours run from October through May. For more information, visit olbrich.org/visit/gardentoglass.cfm.
