Rain, Rain . . : Botanical Garden Part 2

By Pat Saxton
Museum Administrator

So today was the first cruise ship tours to the Botanical Garden. The Museum was asked to be the tour guides for these first few tours, which was fantastic because Malcolm was interested in learning the tour. Also because I love giving this tour, I love the garden--wish I could do this for a living instead of crunching numbers.

Kitchen garden and remains of Bascome House chimney.

We were prepared for a busy day at the Museum and in the Garden, when we realized that the power plant had a fire, and the electricity was shut off to the whole island. This meant we could not open the Museum, and the Botanical Garden Tours would now increase and the first tour was on the way -- two hours early!  All the Museum staff pitched in to help me place the plant markers in the garden. We all had a good laugh as the team called out the name of a plant and someone ran with the marker.  I can’t tell you how great it was to see everyone pitch in to make the first tours possible…now that is team work!

Christmas Palm and Zinnias

Basket palm with new sign.

The ships that came in that day were small “boutique” ships with lots of folks from the UK.  English people love their gardens, and know their plants, so we had to be on top of our game. We had a great time, many visitors posed interesting questions. Everyone was intrigued with Malcolm, his hair, and the fruit off the tamarind tree which he picked for them.

It was all going great, and then the heavy rain came. Great for the garden, bad for the tours. So to add insult to injury, no museum tours, and no botanical garden tours could be conducted in the afternoon. Oh well, we did have fun in spite of the weather and no electricity!