Editor’s Note: This story updates that due to possible severe weather, Saturday’s event has been postponed to June 26.

As students on a field trip prepare to cross a parking lot at the Toledo Botanical Garden, teachers remind the youngsters to march in a straight line for safety reasons.

“Hut, one, two, three, four,” calls out a group of classmates, grinning with the exuberance end-of-the-year field trips trigger. Clutching sheets of paper listing 16 sites to find during a garden scavenger hunt, discoveries prompted shouts of glee. “There, there. I found the Fairy Door.”

In another area of the botanical garden a bride walks briskly along a trail in her wedding gown, being careful as she stepped to avoid staining the white satin. Seconds later the bridesmaids stroll into view. The garden often is the backdrop for wedding photos, and is popular with students posing for senior pictures.

In a nearby lake, mallard ducks fished for lunch. In the Perennial Garden, butterflies flitted from flower to flower. In the gift shop, visitors selected for purchase hand-made jewelry, glasswork, and other objects.

From10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on June 26, the botanical garden, 5403 Elmer Dr., will bustle with activities, but the difference will be like night and day.

During what is billed as the first-ever such special event, guests will be treated to “The Garden After Dark,” a multimedia sensory presentation celebrating the botanical garden’s 50th anniversary. With a focus on light, projection installations created by the University of Toledo Art Department and The Work Collective will shine a spotlight on the theme.

Also on tap: special performances by the Birds Eye View Circus including a fire breather; Toledo School For the Arts Steel Drum Corps, and DJ Rob Sample. Music and art, food and drink round out the evening. Activities in the Artist's Village will include evening tours in the Blair Museum of Lithophanes.

"We are working on some unique projections and installations of light to create an unusual after-hours, night-time experience in the Garden," shared Nathan Mattimoe, TBG board member and chairman of the After Dark committee.

Craft beers by Maumee Bay Brewing and botanically inspired cocktails by the Village on Adams will be available for purchase. Food vendors will also be on site.

Matt Killam, TBG marketing director, said the event is geared to young professionals, but its appeal is broad and he anticipates a mix of ages in the crowd that will have the opportunity to experience the botanical garden in a fresh, new way. "There will be a unique feeling," he said, a blend of art and nature.

An estimated 300 to 500 guests are expected, he said.

For decades the botanical garden has been a place where children take part in educational programs. Adults exercise — walk, jog — at the garden. Older adults volunteer to weed and plant. "People find a need for nature at different times in their lives. People deserve a place with peace and tranquility."

Mr. Killam says he has no green thumb, but loves his job at the botanical garden. "Soil is neutral ground for all."

At age 50, the botanical garden is part of a growing community spirit, he said. The June 26 event will add another accent to that spirit.

Tickets are $15 and can be purchase through the TBG website at toledogarden.org; tickets can also be purchased the evening of the event. Parking will be available at a nearby school.

The Toledo Botanical Garden has evolved to 60 acres of trees, plants, and flowers, plus an Artists Village, since 1964 when a donation of 20 acres of private land was made to the City of Toledo by George P. Crosby for the purpose of creating a public park.

Today, the Toledo Botanical Garden is known as a living-museum and a center for horticulture and the arts. It is the only botanical garden in the region, is open free to the public (excluding some special events), and draws more than 120,000 visitors each year.

Camps and horticultural programs were added through the years. Other expansions included the installation of the city's public sculpture park, the incorporation of 19 arts, horticulture, and conservation groups as resident organizations, construction of a new visitor center and parking area, and community-wide celebrations of visual and performing arts, including the long-running Crosby Festival of the Arts, forming the foundation on which TBG operates today.

In more recent years, programming has expanded to include festivals, performing and visual arts classes and concerts, environmental education classes and workshops, annual wildflower rescue and native plant programs, and family-oriented weekend activities.

In 2006 TBG became a public/​private partnership between the Metroparks of the Toledo Area and the Toledo Botanical Garden Board in collaboration with the City of Toledo.

A downtown campus, The Robert J. Anderson Agriculture Center, 900 Oneida St., houses Toledo GROWs, the community garden outreach program of Toledo Botanical Garden. The GROWS program supports more than 120 community gardens by providing free seeds, seedlings, gardening expertise, loans of tools, and volunteer initiatives.

Throughout 2015, botanical garden events will feature a flavor of the 50th anniversary celebration, Mr. Killam said.

For additional details, call 419-536-5566 or visit online toledogarden.org.

Contact Janet Romaker at jromaker@theblade.com or 419-724-6006.

First Published May 29, 2015, 4:00 a.m.