WABASH,Indiana – The Garden and Herb Festival has changed it’s name to the Wabash Garden Fest for 2016! The name change is meant to broaden the scope of the upcoming festival so as to bring in more gardening supply vendors and visitors to the 19th-annual event at Paradise Spring Park. Everything attendees know and love about the festival will be there, but with addition of vendors featuring everything from yard and garden equipment to mowers and tillers to landscaping ideas.
Pat Lynn, former President and current board member of the Garden Fest, said that she is hoping for a few more vendors this year compared to last year’s total of 47. She added that over the next few years, she like to see that number climb to well over 60. Lynn on the feedback she gets from Garden Fest visitors every year.
She explained that there is plenty of space for people to move around as compared to other events at Paradise Spring, which gives the Garden Fest much more of a laid back feel. Lynn also said that the new larger scope of the festival may attract more men who might otherwise say on the other side of downtown at the Kunkel Cruise-In which, of course, happens the same weekend.
Approximately 500 to 800 visitors have visited the festival in recent years. And most of these visitors, Lynn said, stay at the festival for three or four hours at a time, looking at the wares the vendors are displaying, eating lunch and checking out the chairs at the ever-popular Chair Affair.
Also new this year, there will be an emphasis on recycling, upcycling and re-purposing items for use in a garden or as yard art. There will be something for the kids to do, as well. The 2016 Wabash Garden Fest will take place on Saturday, August 20th, at Paradise Spring Park. For more information, email WABASHGARDENFEST@gmail.com.