Give any garden a tropical look See how at the Mercer Arboretum Sumer Symposium Saturday
Monday, July 23, 2012
Trilla Cook
Dont have a green thumb? Visit Mercer Arboretum Botanic Gardens July 28 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and learn about growing plants that will give a tropical look to any garden.
Mercer is teaming up with The Mercer Society (TMS), a nonprofit 501(c) (3) organization, to present the Summer Symposium Saturday day-long workshop, which focuses on hardy and bold tropical-looking plants that flourish in the heat.
Listen to various gardening experts as they share tips on plant selection and water conservation during the hot summer months.
Enjoy a wide variety of featured topics and speakers, including Gingers and Heliconias by David Glover of Tejas Tropicals; Ferns and Hoyas by Mike Lowery of Another Place in Time; Plants for a Tropical Effect by Gary Outenreath of Beaumont Botanical Gardens; and Landscape Begonias by Tom Keepin of the Astro Branch of the Begonia Society.
Mercer Director Darrin Duling will lead a tour of Mercers own tropical-looking plants to complete the day.
Our Summer Symposium offers visual examples and expert advice, along with a wide range of plants for sale, that will inspire people to inject their garden with an atmosphere of exotic tropical elegance, said Duling.
Duling has been the director at Mercer since September 2011. He has previously served as the director of The Native Plant Center at Westchester Community College in Valhalla, N.Y.; the curator of glasshouse collections for The New York Botanical Garden and director of horticulture for the American Orchid Society. Dulings extensive work history and passion for plants and gardens have taken him to England, Thailand, Borneo, Brazil, Crete, Florida, Oman, Peru, Puerto Rico and Singapore.
The plant sale for participants starts at 8 a.m. (opens to the public at 9 a.m.). The day concludes with an on-site garden tour featuring tough plants that flourish in tropical-looking landscapes. The workshop fee provides lunch, admission to the talks and sale, handouts, and the garden tour.
Glover is a Houstonian who has lived most of his life in East Texas, and is co-owner of Tejas Tropicals and Tejas Heritage Farm, along with his wife, Cheri. The Glovers have four grown children, as well as three live-at-home monkeys. Davids father was a major influence in developing his passion for plants and wildlife, which included weekly visits to Lynn Lowerys garden to check out the newest native plants. His nursery specializes in cold-hardy tropicals including gingers, heliconias, palms, cycads and aroids. He now has one of the largest groups of gingers and heliconias on the U.S. mainland and loves sharing these plants with others.
Lowery was born and raised in the Houston Heights, and started his gardening career at the age of 10 by working on a daylily farm. He is the owner of Another Place in Time which was voted by “Ultimate Houston” as the Best small nursery in Houston. His business is well-known as your uncommon garden center, and is no bigger than the front yard of a Heights cottage. It is full of plants of high quality and low prices, coupled with a marvelous plant-centric gift shop, which brings local gardeners back for more.
Outenreath, director of Horticulture at Beaumont Botanical Gardens in Beaumont, previously was the horticulture manager at Moody Gardens for 13 years. He was involved in the development of the Rainforest Biome and research programs involving medicinal plants and biological controls of damaging plant pests. His qualifications also include working for a landscape architectural firm in Houston; managing a 54-acre wholesale nursery; working as the horticulturist at the 5,000 acre Las Colinas Development near Dallas and writing for both the Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth “Home and Garden Magazines.” He co-authored the “Houston Garden Book,” and he has made numerous plant collecting trips to Central and South America, focusing on plants of ethnobotanical interest.
Keepin has been a member of The American Begonia Society since 1975. He has found that all types of begonias grow very well and over-winter in the Houston area through experimentation in his own garden. Keepin started his landscaping and maintenance company, Keepin it Green, in 1982, after leaving a position with the Department of Agriculture Federal Grain Inspection Service. He will share his vast expertise on growing begonias as garden perennials.
Paid registration is required by July 16, as space is limited. The fee for the symposium is $70 for TMS members and $85 for nonmembers, which includes handouts, lunch and early entrance to the plant sale. For more information and to register, call 281-443-8731. Information can also be found online at www.hcp4.net/mercer.
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