[photo credit: City of Pasadena]
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens is sending its education and botanical staff to the Hill Avenue Branch Library on May 9 for “Rice in a Pot: A Family Gardening Workshop,” a free, all-ages session that is part of the City of Pasadena’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month programming. The workshop runs from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m.
The choice of venue is no accident. Hill Avenue Branch, the oldest in the Pasadena Public Library system, houses the system’s Asian language collection — books, newspapers, and magazines in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese — and is home to Pasadena Grows, the library’s seed-lending program. The branch offers monthly programs with gardening themes.
Participants will learn about the importance of rice across cultures and hear about traditional methods of growing and harvesting the crop, according to a City of Pasadena press release. Each attendee will then decorate a pot, plant a rice seedling, and take it home with care instructions.
The workshop is one of several AAPI Heritage Month events the Pasadena Public Library is hosting in May, with programming sponsored by The Friends of the Pasadena Public Library. Other events include a Japanese Book Binding workshop on May 16 at Jefferson Branch, a Bilingual Chinese Storytime on May 23 at Hill Avenue Branch, and a Tea Tasting with Callisto Tea House on May 30, also at Hill Avenue Branch.
Registration is required. To sign up, visit CityOfPasadena.net/Library/
The branch building, designed by Marston, Van Pelt and Maybury, opened in 1925 and is listed among the city’s Cultural Heritage Landmarks. A century later, seeds are still part of what it offers — only now, some of them grow rice.
