The Ponca City Herb Festival, held the first Saturday of June, is an annual event hosted by the Sage, Rosemary and Thyme Garden Club, and was founded by club member Mary Anne Potter in 1993.

Mary Anne Potter

Cann Memorial Botanical Gardens, the site of the festival, is a ten acre historical botanical garden centrally located in Ponca City, Oklahoma. The gardens were donated to Ponca City by Elsie Cann Brown, daughter of L. A. and Mary Cann, in August 1975 and renovated in 1977. The gardens are showcases of color, texture, and fragrance. They provide local citizens, and visitors alike, with a sanctuary of plants, trees and flowers to absorb and relish.

The garden's beautiful water plants, aromatic herbs and colorful flowers, which bloom all year, set amongst antique lamp posts, winding brick walkways, a gazebo, park benches, and a large tree-shaded patio makes a wondrously perfect setting for the festival. Workshops and seminars are held in the magnificent circa 1908 Cann home.

Yearly attendance is estimated to average well over 20,000. Plants, primitive bird houses, yard ornaments, potting sheds, quilts, herbal vinegars and oils, handmade baskets, candles, soaps, furniture, potpourris, stoneware, and much more were provided by over 95 vendors from Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Arkansas.

Seminars covering topics such as soap making, growing roses, herbs, wildflowers, xeriscape landscaping, making herbal bath products, tussy-mussies, herbal cooking and much, much more, are conducted at each year's festival.

Sage, Rosemary and Thyme Garden Club hosts the festival to promote public education of herbal gardening and related subjects. By staging the festival at the Cann Memorial Garden, it is hoped to heighten public awareness of all Ponca City public gardens and to raise funds for their continuation.