EXTENDING THE GARDEN IN TIME AND SPACE

Saturday, November 1, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

For both the professional and amateur gardener, this symposium explores innovative ways to temporally and spatially stretch a garden’s capacity. Using examples from both small and large gardens, our quarted of nationally acclaimed experts focuses on the best plants for multi-season interest, techniques for “fall-scaping” and “winter-scaping,” creative strategies to “borrow” and make better use of space, and making crucial transitions between garden areas.

You can create a spectacular landscape that lasts well beyond

our region’s May-to-October “leafy season,” and your garden

spaces can break the confines of conventional planting styles.

Extending the Garden is cosponsored by New England Wild Flower Society, Arnold Arboretum, and Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture. An author book-signing follows the talks.

Virginia Small: Design Strategies from Great Gardens

Discover ways to create and extend your garden’s impact by making it more welcoming, unified, and personally expressive. Join garden expert Virginia Small to learn how to make the most of a site, to extend views, and to rely on dramatic focal points and plantings as meaningful structural elements, as well as to make graceful transitions. Virginia illustrates these strategies with vivid images from exceptional landscapes that range from formal to naturalistic.  

Virginia Small is a garden consultant and an award-winning garden writer and editor who enjoys making design topics accessible for gardeners. Formerly senior editor at Fine Gardening Magazine, her work has been published widely, including Horticulture, Garden Design, and American Gardener. Virginia’s new book, Great Gardens of the Berkshires, published by Down East Books, will be available at the symposium.

John Greenlee: Ornamental Grasses and Sedges in Seasonal Design

Grasses and sedges are basic building blocks for creating meadows and natural lawns. With their tremendous versatility and desirability, they are also great additions to almost any kind of garden in sun or shade. “Graminoid” expert John Greenlee looks at the art and science of choosing grasses and sedges to fill multiple niches in your home garden and designed landscapes. Learn how to make textures and gradations of color stand-out in the landscape in all seasons. Many of the highlighted plants are either new to the nursery trade or just now becoming available to Northeastern gardeners.

A renowned specialist in growing ornamental grasses and grass-like plants, John Greenlee is founder of Greenlee Nursery, the west coast’s oldest and largest specialty and ornamental grass nursery. John is author of The Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses, and the soon to be published Meadows by Design. He has also hosted HGTV’s Way to Grow and PBS’s The New Garden.

Stephanie Cohen: Fallscaping: Extending Your Garden Season

Autumn, the oft-neglected shoulder of the gardening season, has its own special beauty, with dazzling foliage, multi-hued fruits, and celestial seed heads. Join the popular  Stephanie Cohen to learn about new possibilities for fall, which appears to be getting longer in our changing climate. Stephanie’s lecture features practical techniques for autumn gardening, a shopping list of late-blooming perennials and showy woody plants, and inspiring plans for visually impressive, fall-friendly garden spaces.

Stephanie Cohen is a nationally recognized horticulturist and an award-winning garden communicator. Stephanie Cohen’s recent book, Fallscaping: Extending your Garden Season into Autumn and The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer, will be available at the symposium.

Nancy Rose: Great Trees and Shrubs for the ‘Other’ Six Months

The leafless season can drag on for nearly half the year in New England. Fortunately, there are plenty of great trees and shrubs that provide landscape interest even without their leaves. Author and horticulturist Nancy Rose highlights plants whose showy bark, striking architecture, and colorful, persistent fruit are sure to enliven your garden throughout the winter.

Nancy Rose, the editor of Arnoldia at the Arnold Arboretum, is a garden writer, photographer, and coauthor of Growing Shrubs and Small Trees in Cold Climates.

Date: Saturday, November 1, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.

Location: Sheraton Framingham Hotel, Framingham, MA

Please call the Sheraton (508-879-7200) for special symposium room rates of $89.

Registration information

Course Code: SYM0803

Symposium Fee: $89 members /$105 non-members, includes continental breakfast and buffet lunch

Registration:  Please call 508-877-7630, ext. 3303

An author book-signing follows the talks.

Extending the Garden is co-sponsored by New England Wild Flower Society, Arnold Arboretum, and Wellesley College Friends of Horticulture.