Cultivating Beauty and Habitat
Saturday, March 2, 2024
8:30-9:15 a.m. REGISTRATION, vendors, exhibits
9:15-9:30 a.m. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION - Jonathan Chesler, Mad Gardeners President
9:30-11:00 a.m. REBECCA MCMACKIN - Adventures in Ecological Horticulture
Who doesn’t love butterflies? Our gardens can be stunningly beautiful while also providing habitat for the wildlife that enriches our lives. For ecological horticulturist Rebecca McMackin, cultivating habitat is central to landscape management. In her 10 years as Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, she oversaw 85 acres of diverse, organic landscapes, all managed to support birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. Rebecca will discuss how to use ecological insight and experimentation to develop new management strategies – and why careful observation and documentation of wildlife in your gardens is crucial to their success.
11:00-11:15 a.m. COFFEE BREAK, vendors, exhibits
11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. BARBARA PAUL ROBINSON - Gardening, A Love Story: Creating Brush Hill
This is the garden love story of Charlie and Barbara Robinson and of Brush Hill, the garden they created together over five decades. It is the story of how two people of very different temperaments and skills worked to create a place of great beauty. Brush Hill covers over 10 acres of gardens, with formal flower borders, a rose garden, vegetable garden, woodland walks, all created and tended by Barbara, and a number of garden features all built by Charlie, including a pond, bridges, arches and his Waterworks with 14 pools, rills and waterfalls. Their ongoing love story offers inspiration, encouragement, honest and funny tales of garden mistakes and the seriously hard work that a garden entails, along with the garden’s many joys.
12:15-1:30 p.m. LUNCH (included with registration), vendors, exhibits
1:30-3:00 p.m. ETHAN KAUFFMAN - Wild and Wonderful: Stoneleigh’s Traditional Landscapes Reimagined with Native Plants
With a 150-year history as a private estate, Stoneleigh: a natural garden became one of the newest public gardens in the Philadelphia region in 2018. Informed by the growing understanding of the connectedness of all living things, a vision arose during the transition: to reimagine a historical landscape as an ecologically vibrant wonderland of native plants. Relying on both tried-and-true gardening techniques and intrepid experimentation, the emerging garden is an exuberant exploration of cultivating native plants in the modern landscape. Stoneleigh Director Ethan Kauffman will reveal the unexpected plants, expressive design philosophy, and unconventional practices that are driving Stoneleigh’s exciting transformation.
3:00-3:10 p.m. CLOSING
Biographical information for the speakers can be found at www.madgardeners.org
Note: Schedule subject to change. Check back closer to the event or contact Mad Gardeners with questions.
Online sales end on Friday, March 1 at 4PM. To register after sales end, email [email protected].