Dollars and Scents: The Business of Cut Flowers

What better way to celebrate than with flowers? That’s what the Museum of Ventura County’s Agriculture Museum will do on Saturday, September 15 when they throw a free party from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m., to mark the first anniversary of opening their doors in Santa Paula.

The day includes two new exhibitions about flowers, music from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. by Arturo and Marco Perez, the appearance of four newly installed vintage tractors, added exhibit activities for children, and the unveiling of conceptual plans for the museum’s Heritage Gardens. The future expansion to be built behind the present Mill will include educational agricultural gardens of crops raised in Ventura County now and in the past; an arbor and aqueduct; and education and venue facilities.

Saturday’s visitors might recognize many of the locations seen in the new exhibit Fields of Flowers: Paintings by Hilda Kilpatrick, which continues through October 28. Inspired by California landscapes since moving here from her native Peru in 1988, Kilpatrick’s exuberant colors and impressionistic brushstrokes convey the beauty of local flower fields. “By capturing places on my canvas, they remain timeless,” Kilpatrick notes.

A similar concern for the future is the focus of the other new exhibition Dollars and Scents: The Business of Cut Flowers. It explores the question of how the county’s eighth most valuable crop will survive in the 21st century, as new challenges confront California’s cut flower industry, which began first in Ventura County. Artifacts, interactive elements and photographs by Dan Holmes, Terri Laine, and John Nichols highlight the exhibition, which continues through December 30.

The Museum of Ventura County’s Agriculture Museum is located at 926 Railroad Avenue, Santa Paula, California, in their historic downtown, near the Depot and next to the railroad tracks. Hours are 10 a.m.– 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is $4 adults, $3 seniors, $1 children 6-17, free for Museum of Ventura County members, and for children ages 5 and younger. On first Sundays of the month, general admission is always free. For more information, go to www.venturamuseum.org or call (805) 525-3100.