The Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club will offer a special horticultural event—Creating an Inspired Garden and Landscape— Saturday, Feb. 23, at The Hill School in Middleburg.
The program will feature some of the leading experts in gardening beginning with William Cullina at 9:45 a.m. He will speak on “Sugar, Sex, and Poison: Shocking Plant Secrets Caught on Camera.”
“Everything eats plants,” Cullina said, “and because they don’t move around they have evolved an incredible arsenal for protection all the while remaining seductive in order to perform pollination, seed dispersal and nutrient acquisition. It’s a delicate balance.”
Cullina is the executive director at The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay. An author and authority on North American native plants, his books include, Wildflowers, Native Trees, Shrubs and Vines, Understanding Orchids, Native Ferns, Mosses and Grasses, and Understanding Perennials. He will demonstrate how the world of pollen, poisons, pigments, pheromones, sugar and sex translates to sound organic horticultural practices.
Helen Dillon’s acre of town garden in the elegant Ranelagh district of Dublin has become the most photographed garden in Ireland. She confesses that her tastes are constantly changing. In her view, gardening should be an entirely intuitive process.
“The best gardening happens when you’ve done all the things you intended to do, and you’re just walking about letting your mind run free,” she said. Dillon will present “Dig It Up and Throw It Away” at 11 a.m.
The undisputed queen of Irish gardening, Dillon will share her spirited approach to dividing, conquering and revitalizing your garden. She is known for unorthodox methods that achieve stunning results.
Following a box lunch which is included in the $125 early bird registration, W. Gary Smith’s “Art to Landscape” will help designers solve problems and artists raise questions. Step beyond creating “solutions” in garden design and find delight in a world where there are more questions than answers.
Smith, one of North America’s leading landscape designers, specializes in botanical gardens, as well as public art installations and private gardens. He received the national Award of Distinction from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers and a Design Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects.
His recent work includes the new Santa Fe Botanical Garden, the Master Plan and Children’s Garden at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, the Discovery Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Therapeutic Garden at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. His book, From Art to Landscape—Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design, will be available at the symposium.
The final speaker will be Thomas Hobbs, with a lecture “Is Your Cake Baked? Mine Was: Starting Over From the Ground Up.” An iconoclastic and trend-setting garden visionary, Hobbs will lead a journey of garden design and implementation at his new garden acquisition in British Columbia, Canada.
Hobbs will speak on learning from nature how to blend color, texture and species of plants to create beauty in the garden. This internationally known impresario of garden and floral design began growing seeds when he was 5 years old and has never looked back.
He is the founder of Thomas Hobbs Florist in Vancouver, and the author of the books Shocking Beauty and The Jewel Box Garden. He is the owner of Southlands Nursery, a culmination of loving and growing plants.
The Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club is a nonprofit organization affiliated with The Garden Club of America and The Garden Club of Virginia.
Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. Early bird registration fee is $125 prior to Feb. 4 and after that day the fee is $140. No refunds can be made after Feb. 18 or because of inclement weather. Tickets will not be mailed. Registrants’ names will be checked at the door on the day of the symposium. The fee includes a box lunch and all handouts. For more information, call Susan Wallace at 540-338-3514 or sent a email to susan@hedgewoodfarm.com.
