Blanco’s first annual Texas Marigold Festival blooms into being October 23rd with a week of multi-cultural celebrations of the glorious marigold. According to Libbey Aly, executive director of the Blanco Chamber of Commerce, we can credit this unique celebration of the marigold to Pamela and Frank Arnosky. She laughs affectionately when I ask for the festival’s origin story and says, “they got us into this mess.”
Pamela and Frank Arnosky of Arnosky Family Farms, the premier cut-flower growers in Texas, tell it a little differently. “We were standing in the Blue Barn one afternoon when our good friend Libbey walked in.” Frank says, “Hey, I’ve got an idea for you. Why doesn’t our entire town plant marigolds at this time of year. We can do it the whole month of October and really grow Blanco’s reputation as the marigold capital of Texas.”
They had a few meetings and the idea organically morphed and expanded. Libbey staked a claim in the public sphere by reserving texasmarigoldfestival.com, they set a date, and the Texas Marigold Festival was born.
Pamela and Frank started their flower farm in 1990 with $1,000 down for 12 “rich bottomland soil” acres on Texas RM 165 heading towards Blanco. Over the next few years, they raised high-quality bedding plants for independent garden centers in Austin, College Station and Houston. As their family expanded and the need to stay closer to home became apparent, Pamela suggested planting a quarter-acre of snapdragons in front of their house to sell in bunches. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Arnosky’s ‘big break’ came in 1994 when a cold call to H-E-B’s new-at-the-time Central Market in Austin resulted in a contract. Word of the Arnosky Farm flowers spread, and the Hispanic community from San Antonio and South Texas began making pilgrimages to Blanco, looking for marigolds for their ‘Day of the Dead’ celebrations and festivals.
Today the farm is 100 acres and the Arnosky operation sends about 25,000 bunches of marigolds to grocery stores across San Antonio and South Texas every autumn. “We pack marigolds in the Blue Barn for two straight weeks,” explains Frank. “There’s a refrigerated truck parked outside the barn that we fill through the afternoon and evening. At four in the morning, it leaves for San Antonio. When it comes back, we fill it up again.”
Dia de los Muertos, once a foreign concept to them, has become an integral part of their lives. “Frank and I say that for several weeks when we’re packing marigolds, we feel like we have one foot in each world. The natural world of our flower farm, and the spiritual world of Day of the Dead.”
Their community ofrenda altar, built to honor lost family members as a central ritual of the Dia de los Muertos tradition, draws visitors from all over Texas. Some bring photocopied pictures of loved ones to place on the ofrenda, others share stories and pray in front of the Arnosky’s marigold bedecked altar.
Despite the growing popularity of the Arnosky’s marigolds and an escalating demand for spaces and festivals that celebrate and embrace diversity, the first annual Texas Marigold Festival almost didn’t happen.
“Last year this time we really thought the pandemic would be over,” Libbey explains, sharing the Blanco Chamber’s deliberations. “It has been hard to decide whether or not to activate this year. We chose to move forward because of the nature of the festival and the opportunity to bring people together in a safe way. The festival venues are spread out, most of them outdoors.”
By now, you must be wondering: What does a Marigold festival entail? Where is this so-called Texas Marigold Festival? If I can’t stand the smell of Marigolds, can I still attend? Rest easy, dear traveler, here are the details:
The festival launches on Saturday, October 23rd at 2 pm with Creation Stations on the old Blanco County courthouse grounds. The young and young at heart can enjoy activities ranging from paper marigold making to crafting golden marigold crowns. At dusk, the festival’s Magical Mystery Parade promenades through town and ends at Bindseil City Park. The evening concludes with a showing of the film Coco at dark. Activities resume on Sunday the 24th with a monarch butterfly nature walk and more workshops.
Festivities continue throughout the week and culminate on Saturday, October 30th with live music by Brave Combo and a Marigold Dance at Twin Sisters Dance Hall.
As for the mysterious marigold, as Pamela Arnosky says, “We’re still discovering all that it has to offer.”
Tagetes erecta, the Cempazuchitl “flower of the dead”, or Mexican Marigold, is native to Mexico and Central America. Spanish explorers took seeds from the Aztecs which survived long trips across the Atlantic to be cultivated in Spain, France and later Northern Africa.
Part of the daisy family, marigolds have an unquantifiable number of practical applications beyond their spiritual and decorative functions. These sunny annuals provide nectar for monarchs, and attract bees, ladybugs and other beneficial insects. They protect nearby plants from marauding pests, possibly because of their confusing scent. Their petals are edible and have antiseptic, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.
Marigolds are the official birth flower of October, and are often associated with the Sun and positive energy. In addition to occupying an honored spot in Day of the Dead celebrations, they play a central role in Hindu Diwali festivals.
Their confusing scent (which by-the-by comes from the marigold’s stems and foliage and not its golden blooms) has been characterized in turns as overpoweringly musky, like wet hay or straw, pungent, bitterly herbaceous and like sharp green leaves.
It is exactly this pungent smell, however, which makes the marigold such a valuable part of Dia de los Muertos celebrations – unerringly guiding the dead from grave to ofrenda with their powerful scent.
Like or hate their smell, it appears that the brazen marigold, coveted internationally for its many vibrant charms, is truly a flower worth celebrating.
For more information about the Texas Marigold Festival visit texasmarigoldfestival.com. Most activities are free or a nominal cost, parking is available around the Blanco town square.
