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McLaughlin Garden in South Paris plans lectures on a variety of topics, including Mediterranean plants that should grow here

By Tom Atwell

In the dreary days of winter, a trip to the Mediterranean sounds good.

McLaughlin Garden in South Paris can’t put you on an airplane, but it can give you a couple of hours of Mediterranean flowers at 4 p.m. Feb. 26 as part of the garden’s winter lecture series. The lecture by Harriet Robinson is actually called Mediterranean Plants in Maine Gardens, but that could be enough to give you a midwinter break.

McLaughlin Garden is offering seven programs in its series, which runs at 4 p.m. every Wednesday from Feb. 19 to April 2. Not only are all of the lectures free, if you arrive early, you can have free tea and snacks to go along with the companionship of other gardeners. Walk-ins are welcome.

Stephanie Edwards, garden operations manager, said the talks fulfill several purposes.

“We like to bring in people from local businesses, so we have a connection to them,” she said. “Part of our mission is horticultural education, so it helps with that.”

Judy Florenz, who with Becky Burke is co-chairwoman of the programs committee, said Robinson’s talk was a last-minute addition, to reach seven programs.

“She is a member of the committee and has a doctorate in archaeology, so she spends a lot of time in Greece,” Florenz said. “She said, ‘Oh, I have a lot of photos of plants, so I can put something together.’”

Other programs in the McLaughlin series, co-sponsored by McLaughlin’s affiliated Foothills Garden Club, include beekeeping by Carol Cotrill, president of the Maine Beekeepers Association, Feb. 19; Growing Cut Flowers by Cindy Creps of Meadow Ridge Perennial Farm, March 5; Garden Blogs by Jean Potuchek, March 12; Growing and Using Lavender by Betsey-Ann Golon of Common Folk Farm, March 19; Landscaping and Landscape Design by Eli Goodwin of Goodwin Nursery, March 26; and Not Your Grandmother’s Geraniums by Cindy Tibbetts of Hummingird Farm on April 2.

• Merryspring Nature Center in Camden has speakers at noon Tuesdays, but not all of them are about gardening. They are free to members, $5 for non-members. Highlights (for me, anyway) include New Plants for 2014 by Hammon Buck, Feb. 25; Sedges of Maine by Matt Arsenault, March 4; Gardening for Birds with Native Plants by Sharon Turner May, 13; and Tending the Perennial Garden in June by Wendy Andresen. For a complete list go to merryspring.org.

• Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens has little going on for public programs until April. Lois Berg Stack, an ornamental horticulture professor at the University of Maine, will teach Soil Science for Gardeners on April 15 and 16 at $120 for members and $150 for non-members; and Brady Barber and Lisa Cowan will teach Shaping a Natural Site into a Landscaped Space on April 24-26 at $150 for members and $180 for nonmembers.

Garden clubs also offer a lot of different programs.

• The Belfast Garden Club has an extensive schedule of programs, usually at 2 p.m. Tuesdays, but sometimes later in the day and not every week. Highlights include Bonsai by Aaron Bowden at 2 p.m. Feb. 18 and Container Gardening with Liz Stanley at 2 p.m. April 8, both at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, 95 Court St., Belfast. For a complete list go to belfastgardenclub.org.

• Longfellow Garden Club in Portland is beginning its 10th decade, so some of its programs will be on club history. Gardening programs include Gardening for Hummingbirds with Anne Murphy of Gnome Landscapes at 11 a.m. April 8 at Woodfords Congregational Church, 202 Woodford St.

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Xeriscape Corpus Christi and the City Water Department hosted the 2014 Xeriscape Garden Symposium on Saturday. This was held at the  South Texas Botanical Gardens Nature Center. The local experts discussed several topics including plant selections, landscaping design, irrigation and mulches.

Fernando Wong has long been impressed with Palm Beach because of its residents’ history of interest in horticulture and landscaping.

“They take their landscapes very seriously,” said Wong, 38, who started his own landscape-design firm nine years ago in Miami Beach. ”It’s a world-class place for landscape design.”

Wong and partner Tim Johnson, who oversees the business side of Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design, recently opened a satellite office on Worth Avenue, to better handle the firm’s growing roster of clients around town, in North Palm Beach and on Jupiter Island.

Wong’s first job on the island came about three years ago, after local decorator Lillian Fernandez saw an ad for his firm, featuring a photograph of a Miami project, in a design magazine.

The look of the garden in the photograph struck Fernandez as “something new and different for Palm Beach,” the decorator said. After meeting him in Miami and seeing a few of his projects with her clients for an oceanfront house, Fernandez was sold on Wong’s aesthetic and recommended him for the job.

“What I appreciate about Fernando is his artistic sensibility and his ability to listen to what clients want,” she said. “He is also a quick study, able to conceive the landscape plan and sketch it out on the spot, and then install it without many changes. Most clients don’t like surprises. There are no surprises with Fernando. His designs are thorough, complete and workable.”

Fernandez has introduced Wong to several clients and has hired him to do work at her own home.

“Lillian Fernandez really opened the doors for us in Palm Beach,” said Johnson.

The firm is currently involved in about a dozen projects on the island and in the surrounding area. Wong also is participating in the upcoming Red Cross Show House.

Another Palm Beach decorator, Leta Austin Foster, also was instrumental in bringing Wong to the attention of Palm Beach clients. The two met in 2011 at a DCOTA event, hit it off and began working on projects together, with Foster recommending the landscape designer to her clients.

“That’s why we opened the office here,” said Johnson, who worked out of Foster’s Via Mizner office with Wong for a short time before they found a space of their own in December.

Two people work full time in Palm Beach. A staff of eight works out of Wong’s Miami Beach headquarters. Wong and Johnson plan to spend half their time working out of the island office.

On the island, the firm’s primary focus is on residential projects. Wong tailors each garden design to the architectural style of the house, as well as to the tastes and lifestyles of clients.

“I like to think of a garden as series of rooms,” he said, explaining that the style of a landscape design can range from traditional to contemporary. Scale, proportion and layering are essential ingredients in gardens, Wong said.

“I think about how the design will age,” he said.

Thus, he advocates the use of native plants because they will do better over time. “I don’t like the idea of a client having to replace plants every year.”

That idea was fully developed when Wong was hired by Karen Eggers to design the landscape at a new North End house. Eggers wished to create a so-called green home, certified according to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.

Introduced to Wong through her builder, Tim Givens, Eggers was pleased with the landscape designer’s ideas and his enthusiasm for the project.

“Fernando understood the aesthetic of the house, which is Art Deco, and had a thorough knowledge of drought-resistant plants,” she said. Eggers’ home, completed last fall, received its platinum LEED certification in December. It is the only house in town that is LEED certified.

For more information about Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design, call 515-0213 or visit fernandowongold.com.