Delaware Botanic Gardens announces lecture series starting Sept. 24
The Delaware Botanic Gardens has announced four expert speakers for its 2016-17 lecture series. All lectures take place from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturdays. Admission is free.
Donald Pell will present Embracing the Regional Landscape Saturday, Sept. 24, at South Coastal Library in Bethany Beach. Pell is the founder and principal landscape designer for Donald Pell Gardens in southeastern Pennsylvania. With more than 20 years in the industry, he is known for creating immersive gardens that embrace place and evoke the inherent beauty of regional landscapes. He calls his gardens "impressionistic models of regional landscapes." Understanding the biology of specific plants and how they integrate into a landscape is the key to programming these gardens. Pell will discuss how cool- and warm-season plants are selected to stabilize soils and create desirable compositions, and he will survey the role of ephemeral plants in building desirable seed banks while a garden is evolving. Also covered will be management of aggressive and thuggish plants and the successes and failures of landscaping projects.
Holly Shimizu will present Lessons from a New Garden Oct. 29 at the new Lewes library. Having recently designed and developed a Delaware garden with her husband Osamu, Shimizu will focus on lessons learned and how her approach to gardening has changed over time. Along with some good horticultural guidance, she will examine what makes a great garden, how to create garden spaces that are sanctuaries and how to blend stewardship practices into horticultural endeavors. Shimizu was the executive director of the United States Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., for more than 14 years and co-starred in the television series "The Victory Garden." She is also a member of the Advisory Council of the Delaware Botanic Gardens.
Ruth Rogers Clausen will present Deer-Resistant Native Perennials Feb. 25 at the East Coast Garden Center in Millsboro. Clausen was trained in horticulture in the United Kingdom and has been in the green industry for more than 50 years, primarily based in the Midwest and the Northeast. Her books include "Perennials for American Gardens" (coauthored), "Dreamscaping," "50 Beautiful Deer-Resistant Plants" and "Essential Perennials" (coauthored).
She is also a member of the board of directors of the Delaware Botanic Gardens. Deer browsing has become one of the major problems deterring gardeners from growing ornamentals of all kinds. Choosing plants that deer find unpalatable is perhaps the best defense against them, without depending on expensive fences or regular spraying with deer deterrents.
Clausen will highlight some native perennials that deer do not find appealing. Tips and tricks that make a garden less inviting to the local herd will also be discussed. Although there is no such thing as a deer-proof garden in deer country, lots of natives can be used to landscape a gardener's property. Attendees will learn how to make landscaping deer-tolerant rather than having to fight nature.
Sam Droege will present Native Bees in Delaware: Co-creators of Delaware's Native Plants April 22 at South Coastal Library in Bethany Beach. Everyone knows the honeybee, but how many are aware of the hundreds of native bee species that live in Delaware? Bees pollinate the native plants of the state as well as important crops...for free! They range in size from half a grain of rice to hefty carpenter bees. Most do not sting, and they are more common and more beautiful than most butterfly species.
Droege will show extreme close-up shots of these bees taken with new photography techniques as well as talk about how to make property bee-friendly. Droege has coordinated the North American Breeding Bird Survey Program and developed the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program, the Bioblitz, the Cricket Crawl, and the FrogwatchUSA programs. Currently he is developing an inventory and monitoring program for native bees and online identification guides for North American bees at www.discoverlife.org.
