Bartram’s Garden, home to America’s first great native botanist John Bartram and the largest public green space in Philadelphia, is celebrating spring with several exciting events and openings.

Next weekend, May 4-6, visitors of all ages are invited to enjoy a plant sale, hands-on gardening activities and guided tours of the historic site, including a new educational Green Room, native plant nursery and community farm. The Green Room will open in Bartram’s historic stable. Visitors will be able to borrow binoculars for bird watching and watercolors for painting. An educator will be on hand to answer questions and provide tours, and guest feedback will directly influence how the Green Room evolves.

The garden will be open to all on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Entrance is free. Day passes, which include a guided house and garden tour, and access to seasonal activities in the Green Room, are $8 to $12 (free for members).

Also on hand Saturday and Sunday: spring planting tips, children’s activities and plant sale. Most of the plants were grown on site in a new nursery, located next to the Garden Shop. While in the garden, also make sure to check out a new orchard, with more than 40 heirloom fruit trees. The orchard is adjacent to Bartram’s new community garden. Last year, workers cleared shrubs and removed unused tennis courts and baseball fields from the southern end of the property to make way for a 1.5-acre community garden.

Finally, this summer a one-mile portion of the Schuylkill River Trail will be completed and connect to the 58th Street Greenway, the Cobbs Creek Parkway and eventually lead to Valley Forge and points beyond.

“This trail, which will wind through Bartram’s beautiful meadow and show off views of the Philadelphia skyline, will not only be a great addition to Bartram’s Garden but to the City of Philadelphia,” says interim director Stephanie Phillips. Stay tuned for information on bike-related events and workshops coming to the garden.

Bartram’s Garden is located at 54th St. & Lindbergh Blvd. For more information, visit: www.bartramsgarden.org. or call 215-729-5281.

Reader Sunny Bavaro took this photo on Baltimore Avenue right outside Baltimore Pet Shoppe.

Send us your West Philly photo at editor@westphillylocal.com. Please include your name and your photo’s title.

State Rep. James Roebuck has fended off a challenge from Fatimah Loren Muhammad in a 188th District General Assembly race that centered on school vouchers.

With 93 percent of precincts reporting, Roebuck stands with 56 percent of the vote this morning. Muhammad, who was defined in the press by her connection to big, pro-vouchers donors, was vying to upset Roebuck, who has been in the seat since 1985. A Democratic primary victory, of course, virtually assures reelection in the fall election.

Elsewhere in the city, longtime legislator state Rep. Babette Josephs appears to have lost her 182nd (Center City and South Philadelphia) District seat to her former campaign treasurer Brian Sims, who would be the first openly gay member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. The Associated Press called the race for Sims.

“We’re going to need real magic to pull this show off, and we’ve got it!” says the Curio Theatre Company, of their latest production, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which opens this Friday, April 27. A revenge story featuring drunken clowns, political intrigue, a magical slave-driving wizard, and a father-daughter duo marooned on an island for twelve years, The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most compelling comedies.

Director Dan Hodge, co-founder of the Philadelphia Artists Collective, makes his directing debut with this production. “Ultimately The Tempest is about choice,” says Hodge, “and Prospero’s command of dark arts affords him an impossibly wide array of options.  The balance hangs on revenge and forgiveness.  And that’s a current that runs through nearly every character in the play.”

Paul Kuhn, Curio’s Artistic Director, has designed a “magical playground” for the production, rumored to include a rolling ocean, a ship, and a tropical island. The fifteen characters will be played by seven actors. Joining long-time company member Brian McCann as Prospero are Steve Carpenter, Liam Castellan, Robert Daponte, Aetna Gallagher, Ken Opdenaker, Eric Scotolati and Isa St.Clair.

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Opening April 27. Curio Theatre, 4740 Baltimore Avenue. 215-525-1350.

Today is primary election day in Pennsylvania. The Committee of Seventy has a handy online guide to polling places. Just go here, enter your address and it will map your polling place.

This primary will be a dry run for Pennsylvania’s new voter ID law. That means that poll workers will ask you for ID, but you can vote whether you have it or not – as long as you have voted in the same precinct before. New voters in a precinct will need to show ID.

By now just about everyone has seen the posters around the neighborhood over the last few weeks – the ones with a woman’s portrait stylized like the President Barack Obama “Hope” posters.

The woman portrayed is Fatimah Loren Muhammad, who is challenging long-time incumbent James Roebuck in tomorrow’s primary for the Democratic nomination in the state General Assembly’s 188th District, which includes a sizable chunk of West Philly. Muhammad is an intriguing candidate to say the least. She is young (27), a Penn graduate, Muslim, openly bisexual and she grew up poor, and sometimes homeless, as the daughter of a single mother. That story resonates with lots of West Philly voters. The Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity recently endorsed her.

But there is another Fatimah Muhammad, one whose candidacy is being bankrolled by many people who have a very different life story. Her connection to conservative, pro-voucher (or “school choice,” depending on your political persuasion) donors has been well reported. Rep. Roebuck, who has served in the General Assembly since 1985 (too long for some people’s taste), has been an obstacle for the pro-voucher contingent, which aims to provide students public money to attend private and parochial schools.

Spend a few minutes with Muhammad’s campaign finance reports (they are included below) and another couple of minutes on Google and you will find a straight line between her campaign and pro-voucher, Republican billionaires.

Roebuck’s campaign has drawn money from those opposed to vouchers, including $5,000 from the Committee to Support Public Education, a PAC funded by the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers. That single contribution accounts for about a third of the total donations to Roebuck’s campaign.

Muhammad has said that the whole voucher issue is a “distraction.”

As for the money, she recently told The Philadelphia Tribune that, as a newcomer, she can’t be choosy about donations.

“As someone who’s new to politics, I can’t afford not to take money from anyone,” she recently told the Trib‘s Eric Mayes.

She continued in the article: “In this campaign vouchers have been used by my opponent to try and pigeonhole me in a particular area,” she said. “My stance is to keep everything on the table. I want parents at the center of this — not for political gain or anything. My stance has always been empowering parents.”

Below is the recently released campaign finance report for Friends of Fatimah. At least 80 percent of the $76,030 she raised is from groups and individuals connected to school voucher lobbyists, mostly organizations funded by Students First.

Here is a playbill for the biggest contributors:

• Students First PAC – $25,000

A school voucher campaign contributor that receives its funding from the American Federation for Children, a network of wealthy pro-voucher contributors. Finance wizard and billionaire Joel Greenberg of Bala Cynwyd sits on the organization’s Board of Directors. Gov. Tom Corbett reportedly received $50,000 from the organization in his campaign for governor.

• Women for Change – $4,000

The City Paper calls this organization, which lists an Elkins Park address but very little else, a “shell of a PAC.”  On March 21, Students First contributed $10,000 to Women for Change. On March 23, Women for Change contributed $4,000 to Fatimah Muhammad.

• Public Education Excellence – $7,500.

A PAC run in part by Joy Herbert, a parent of a West Philadelphia High School student who served on the school’s School Advisory Council. The PAC received $6,000 from Students First on March 19 and another $6,000 on March 27, according to campaign finance reports.

• Progressive Agenda PAC – $5,900

Another PAC that received money from Students First. On March 27, Students First contributed $6,000 to Progressive Agenda, about a week before Progressive Agenda contributed $5,900 to Friends of Fatimah.

• Black Clergy PAC – $1,000

Also on March 27, Students First contributed $6,000 to the Black Clergy PAC, according to campaign finance reports. On April 6 the PAC contributed $1,000 to the Muhammad campaign and April 17, the Black Clergy publicly endorsed Muhammad.

• Citizens Networking for Progress PAC – $3,000

On March 27, Students First contributed $8,000 to this PAC. On April 9. Friends of Fatimah received $3,000 from the PAC.

• Barbara Chavous – $9,239.03

An individual contributor whose address is listed in Macon, Ga. on campaign finance reports, Chavous works for the Muhammad campaign. Her daughter, Dawn Chavous (who contributed $4,000 to the campaign), is married to Philadelphia City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson. Dawn Chavous is also the executive director of Students First PA.

(h/t City Paper‘s Daniel Denvir, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Amara Rockar, The Philadelphia Tribune, UC Neighbors)

Friends of Fatimah Campaign Finance