Our commitment to bring you nine interesting speakers to satisfy your horticultural curiosity has not changed. As long as group gatherings are not an option, we will present our guest speakers live online via Zoom conferencing, on the day they were scheduled to visit with us. Online conferencing is a wonderful technology and per your requests, we plan to continue to livestream and record meetings (with speaker’s permission) even when we return to our in-person monthly meetings.
Recordings of past speakers (when permitted) are available only to members of CT Hort. Members can request the link to the recording by emailing [email protected]. Each recording will be available for approximately a month, until it is replaced by the next speaker’s recording.
Gardening With What You Have
with Christine Froehlich: garden communicator, designer, and problem solver
Thursday, June 17, 2021 – 7 p.m.
Click here to download Christine’s handout.
Click here to let us know what you thought of Christine’s talk.
If you’d like to improve your garden or landscape, it takes three things— your eyesight, a little imagination, and a plan of action. Many homeowners who want to create new gardens or improve existing ones struggle because they lack design experience and don’t know where to start. In this slide lecture, Christine Froehlich will show you how to evaluate your existing landscape and how to correct common problems—from plant choices and siting to design—by leading you, with before and after images, through some of the projects she’s worked on. You’ll leave with plenty of tips for creating the gardens that you want by working with what you have.
Passion for Problem Solving
Christine loves to work outdoors and can’t imagine life without a garden. It’s been her vocation, passion, source of entertainment, and comfort since sliding a shovel into the soil 40 years ago. Much of her training has been hands-on. Her first gardening job was in Maymont Park, a public garden in Richmond, Virginia. A few years later, she landed a position as the head gardener on a private estate in Wilton, Conn. After years of honing her on-the-job skills and getting further training at the New York Botanic Garden, Christine established a garden design and maintenance company, which she operated for 30 years in Fairfield County and Kent, Conn. (Her CV also includes stints as a garden writer, and Executive Director at the Rochester Civic Garden Center.)
In her landscaping business, Christine was routinely exposed to the same hodgepodge of garden problems—struggling plants, inadequate or no apparent design, overcrowding, poor siting, improper pruning, and general lack of maintenance. In short, lots of underused plants, missed opportunities, and unhappy homeowners. The waste of resources drove her nuts, but as she worked with the homeowners, she found great satisfaction in using what they already had in their yards more advantageously—she became really passionate about the problem-solving aspect of gardening.
Christine’s monthly blog – Gardening With What You Have (www.gwwyh.com) shares information with other gardeners, homeowners, and anyone else who wants to know how to create a more exciting landscape.
Past Speakers from the 2020-2021 Season:
Join author and gardener Tom Christopher for a tour of Wave Hill, and discover the lessons to be learned in its world-famous gardens. As we revel in Wave Hill’s lush beauty, we’ll examine the skills and techniques perfected by its crafts-men and women, and in the process gain a new perspective on our own home landscapes. If he’s not planting or pruning, Tom Christopher is probably in the WESU radio studio (88.5 FM), working on his weekly program and podcast, “Growing Greener.” Tom is also the author of 15 books about gardening, and he publishes a syndicated gardening column that circulates to 250,000 readers. His most recent book, Nature into Art: The Gardens of Wave Hill, details the horticultural lessons to be learned at that beloved New York public garden.Tom gardens with his wife in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, where he and Suzanne also pursue their hobby of recreating vintage New England hard ciders.
Click here to let us know what you thought of Tom’s talk.
Leslie Duthie is a life-long gardener whose devotion to ferns began the first time she grew a fern from spore. She has dedicated her career to learning about, gardening with, and propagating native plants. Learn how ferns grow from fiddlehead to frond and how to incorporate these plants into your landscape. Ferns can be used anywhere from specimens to mass plantings and in locations from the rock garden to the deep shade of the woodlands. Leslie recently retired as horticulturalist at Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Wales, Mass. The gardens of Norcross are full of plants that she has raised and her knowledge of the ferns is extensive. Leslie also works with the local Land Trust and Conservation Commission to preserve land for both our native plants and wildlife as well as for people to enjoy. Leslie has a BS in Plant Science and has experience in greenhouse growing of both landscape plants and native plants.
Click here to let us know what you thought of Leslie’s presentation.
Click here for Leslie’s handout about ferns.
Guest speaker Karen Perkins will illustrate the many and varied types of Epimediums now commercially available, including some of the exciting new evergreen species from China. Characteristics, growth habit, growing and propagation, pests and diseases, and combining Epimediums with other shade perennials in the garden will also be discussed. Karen graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture and from the University of Delaware with a Master of Science in Public Garden Management. She has worked/interned at several botanic gardens including: the Cornell Plantations, Longwood Gardens, The Arboretum at Flagstaff, Royal Botanic Gardens- Kew, England and Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland. Karen served in the Education Department of the Tower Hill Botanic Garden in Boylston, Mass. for 17 years. She is currently the owner of Garden Vision Epimediums, a Massachusetts-based mail order nursery, started by Darrell Probst.
Click here to download the handout for Karen’s talk.
Click here after you hear Karen to tell us what you thought.
Rodger Phillips owns and operates Sub Edge Farm in Avon and Farmington, Conn. With his wife Isabelle and five children, the Phillips’ family life is centered on the farm and the seasons. Sub Edge grows 20 acres of vegetables, fruits, flowers, and culinary herbs as well as humanely raised pigs, pasture-raised poultry, and 100% grass-fed beef. Their crop plan includes more than 150 varieties of certified organic vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers. Rodger will share the successes and challenges of working and managing a local, organic farm. He and his wife’s proposal to steward the farm was chosen from more than a dozen others submitted to the towns of Avon and Farmington. Prior to working the land at Sub Edge, the Phillips’s were trained on and managed a number of small farms.
Click here to respond to a survey telling us what you thought of Rodger’s presentation.
Joseph Tychonievich is obsessed with gardening, and that has taken him crazy places and given him fun stories… In his talk Confessions of a Plant Nerd, you’ll laugh with recognition at some of the outlandish things we, the plant obsessed, do and get ideas on how to revel in your love of plants and have the most possible fun in your garden. A lifelong gardener and lover of plants, Joseph has worked for nurseries in the US and Japan, has been a repeated guest on public radio’s food show The Splendid Table, and was named by Organic Gardening Magazine as one of “… six young horticulturists who are helping to shape how America gardens.” Joseph is the author of Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener, The Complete Guide to Gardeners, and Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style and is the editor the North American Rock Garden Society quarterly journal. Currently Joseph lives with his husband, two cats, a dog, and an absurd number of plants in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Click here to watch Joseph’s presentation again
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This talk is based on Ellen Ecker Ogden‘s newest book, The New Heirloom Garden, that is coming out in February 2021. Learn how to grow something new that is old, and revel in growing your own seeds to sow each year in your own garden, and to share with friends. Be inspired to plant varieties that add forgotten charm to your own heirloom garden and serve up good food. Ellen is an award winning kitchen garden designer who lives in Vermont. She returns to build on our understanding of design basics and will discuss plant options such as heirloom vegetables, forgotten fruits, and fragrant flowers.
Please click here to enjoy the recording of Ellen’s interesting conversation.
Click here to download Ellen’s meeting handout.
Click here to let us know what you thought of Ellen’s presentation.
Karen Bussolini has been a gardener all her life. She trained as a painter and was an architectural photographer before specializing in garden photography, writing, speaking and eco-friendly garden coaching/design. She is a NOFA (Northeast Organic Farmers Association) Accredited Organic Land Care Professional. Her garden has been featured in many publications, including Anne Raver’s feature, “A Hillside of Feisty Beauties” in The New York Times. Karen will show you how gifted gardeners across the country put plants together in exciting ways. You’ll see how experts use color, texture, form and other elements to harmonize or contrast. Explore building on this basic visual vocabulary to create lively conversations, more complex schemes. Once we dig into plants that move or appear to move you will know how get your garden not just talking, but dancing with delight. Jazzing Up the Garden with Color, Contrast and Movement teaches simple, intuitive ways to combine plants that new or experienced gardeners can apply to amp up excitement in your garden.
Click here to download the handout for Karen’s talk.
Click here to tell us what you thought of Karen’s presentation.
Joann Vieira is the statewide Director of Horticulture for the Trustees of Reservations. Founded in 1891, the Trustees is the nation’s first and the state of Massachusetts’s largest conservation and preservation organization. Among the nearly 120 properties protected by the Trustees there are significant and treasured historic landscapes and gardens, including 11 public gardens. Join us from the comfort and safety of your own home, to hear Joann’s suggestions on gardening to attract birds to your garden. Her presentation – Designing for Birds – will be livestreamed and you can watch from your computer, iPad, or phone.
Click here to let us know what you thought of Joann’s presentation.