Annual Themes
Reiman Gardens uses a process called Dimensional Design to create its annual theme. Using a holistic approach, Dimensional Design requires a team effort from all departments. Thus, the Gardens' staff develops educational programs, interpretation, communications, events and amenities that support one theme, which in turn, also supports the Gardens' mission.
The theme encourages guests to view the garden and its mission from a different perspective each time they visit. By working annually, all displays have interconnected sub-themes that support the annual theme
What is the planning time-line?
- Theme year planning is done three to five years in advance.
- Conceptual planning (creating sub-themes) is started started two years in advance.
- Detailed design are prepared one year in advance.
Why Plan this Way?
- Gives structure to displays and programs
- Keeps displays and programs focused
- Generates innovative ideas
- Encourages repeat visits with something new to see every year
- Creates great sponsorship opportunities
- Strengthens the staff into a team
Reiman Gardens' Theme Years:
- 2003 - Year of the Butterfly
- 2004 - Seasons of Agriculture
- 2005 - Global Garden (Garden traditions from around the world)
- 2006 - Art of Gardening (Gardening as art and art in the garden)
- 2007 - Excellence in Bloom (Celebrating Iowa State University's 150th anniversary)
- 2008 - The Novel Garden (Gardens inspired by literature)
- 2009 - The Landscape Before Time (Plants and insects from pre-historic times)
- 2010 - Celebration of the Garden Ornamentation (celebrating quirky garden decorations)
- 2011 - Insects! (gardens inspired by those misunderstood and under-appreciated insects)
- 2012 - Some Assembly Required
- 2013 - More than Meets the Iowa
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Famous quotes containing the words annual and/or themes:
“No annual training or muster of soldiery, no celebration with its scarfs and banners, could import into the town a hundredth part of the annual splendor of our October. We have only to set the trees, or let them stand, and Nature will find the colored drapery,—flags of all her nations, some of whose private signals hardly the botanist can read,—while we walk under the triumphal arches of the elms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)