June 18, 2015: Robert Adzema – “Designing the Light: Using Sun Dials and a Sense of Place to Understand the Play of Sunlight in Your Garden” Evaluate this speaker by clicking this link
Sculptor and plein air landscape painter Robert Adzema has spent a lifetime pursuing the beauty of sunlight. For his sun-specific sculptures, he combines astronomical expertise with aesthetic vision to create monumental one-or-a-kind, site specific sundials that serve not only to mark the time but also to connect their place on the earth with the alignment of the sun and stars overhead. For gardeners, he offers a profound understanding of sunlight and exposure far advanced beyond the customary horticultural “sunny” vs. “shade”; learn how to read what the sun will be doing in the different areas of your landscape every hour of every day and throughout the seasons.
May 21, 2015:Jan Johnsen, “Serenity by Design: Creating a Relaxing Outdoor Space” To evaluate this speaker click this link.
We all crave a serene haven outdoors where we can simply relax and enjoy the moment, asserts landscape designer Jan Johnsen, and in this talk the award winning speaker, writer, television and radio host details how to transform this desire into reality. This lushly illustrated seminar shares intriguing ideas for creating simplicity, sanctuary and delight in a garden, and explores ways you can use the ‘power of place’, the layout of your garden, the cardinal directions, and color to create a landscape that elevates your mood and increases your sense of well being. Click here for a handout on “Plants for Blue Gardens.” CT HORT HANDOUT JAN JOHNSEN – Plants for Blue
April 16, 2015 :Robert Herman, “Garden Design and Plant Selection by Habitat: Making the Most of Your Site” Evaluate this speaker: click here and take our survey.
For generations Americans have looked to England for horticultural inspiration; Robert Herman urges us to broaden our view to include the revolutionary – and ravishing — style of perennial plant design coming out of continental Europe. Designing and planting by habitat in the continental style combines robust, low maintenance plants ideally suited to each growing situation; the result is enhanced sustainability as well as a more natural aesthetic. Concrete examples of different habitats and specific plant combinations suited to each will be provided. CT Hort Society 2015 Slide List Handout RH
March 19, 2015; Louis Bauer “Edible Ornamentals: Enhance the Garden Using Plants That Taste as Good as They Look” Evaluate this speaker click here and take our survey
Louis Bauer is a horticulturist whose work as the head of various public gardens has made him a leader in his field; he is doing things at Wave Hill to enhance its reputation as the country’s best public garden. The 28-acre Bronx beauty, one of the most exciting and innovative public gardens in America, has long been famous for the striking and imaginative ways in which edible crops are integrated into its elegant ornamental displays. Louis Bauer, who began his career as a gardener at Wave Hill and recently returned as its Horticultural Director, will discuss eclectic techniques he helped to pioneer with the legendary Marco Polo Stufano.
February 19, 2015: Kerry Ann Mendez, “Right-sizing Your Perennial Garden” Mendez is a self-taught gardener with over 25 years of experience, is a “passionate perennialist” who enjoys mixing humor with practical information. She is dedicated to teaching the art of low-maintenance perennial gardening and landscaping. As a garden consultant, designer, writer and lecturer, she focuses on time-saving gardening techniques and workhorse plant material as well as organic practices. Mendez has provided a guide for CHS members: Handout Right-Size Flower Garden (1)
January 15, 2015: Karen Bussolini, “What Photography Can Teach You About Garden Design: Framing Views, Working with Textures, and More”
We all use our cameras to save memories of others’ gardens – but we can benefit as much or more by turning it on our own horticultural creations. Renowned garden photographer Karen Bussolini explains how the camera’s impartial eye can help us compose and frame views, while teaching us about aesthetic elements such as mass, light, textures and point of view. A commitment to seeing well is essential to creating compelling photographic images, of course, but it can be just as fundamental to creating compelling gardens.
November 20, 2014 : Kristine Boys, “Creating a Native, Lower-Maintenance Lawn”
Over the last 6 years, Kristine Boys of Cornell University’s Mundy Wildflower Garden has been harvesting seeds from the wild to create a biodiverse, sustainable lawn of native grasses and wildflowers that nurtures pollinators and wildlife while pleasing the eye with bloom. Best of all, it flourishes with only one or two mowings a year. Kristine Boys is making history within the ecologically oriented gardening community with her development of a revolutionary model of flowering, native turf; she brings to us cutting edge research from one of our foremost horticultural institutions.
October 23, 2014: Lee Reich, “Pomona’s Secrets: Unusual, Easy-to-grow Fruits for Northeast Gardens” (PLANT LIST LINKED HERE)
In a reprise of his most popular program, Lee Reich will offer tastings of cold-hardy, delectable, pest-free fruits harvested from his own garden, while offering his expert insights about how to make your own landscape equally fruitful. Meet the pawpaw, the medlar, Nanking cherry, and persimmon, and a fruitbowl full of other treats easily grown in Connecticut gardens.
Sept. 18, 2014: Kristin Schleiter, “A Native Plants Garden for the 21st Century” (PLANT LIST linked HERE)
In 2013, the New York Botanical Garden inaugurated a spectacular, 3.5 acre new Native Plant Garden that dazzles the visitor with plantings of 100,000 native trees, wildflowers, ferns, and grasses. Its four-season drifts of color and texture showcase not only the individual beauty of our North American native plant species, they demonstrate – in expertly composed borders and beds – the leading role these plants can take in the cultivated landscape. Furnished with recycled materials — even the water that fills 230-foot-long pool and waterfall is collected storm water naturally filtered by aquatic plantings – this garden is a testament to sustainability as well as beauty.