Thanks to all who joined us For the 2023 Garden Symposium
Gardening For Good - Full Circle Gardening!
Over the past few years, the importance of gardening and our relationship with nature has come to the forefront. We found ourselves turning to nature to center us, whether to community gardens, public parks, back yards, or farms for healing, connections, and peace.
The 2023 CMGA Virtual Garden Symposium will take place on Saturday, March 11th. We are excited to take advantage of virtual technology to offer a day filled with national experts to challenge us to consider:
How can we use our spaces to form a deeper relationship with nature?
How do we design these spaces to reflect our relationship with them and to develop continuity with the natural world?
How can we appreciate and interact with these spaces year round?
Endless Gift of Trees
The morning starts with our keynote speaker, William Bryant “Bill” Logan who is a faculty member of the New York Botanical Garden, a certified arborist and award-winning author.
We know that a healthy tree canopy, when allowed to thrive, can lead to a positive environment for people, plants and animals. But as we know, tree numbers are shrinking at an alarming rate worldwide, the victims of urban expansion. Bill will challenge our thinking by examining the historical management of trees and tree removal as the beginning of an opportunity for an active relationship to repairing the environment.
Bill has spent the last three decades working in and with trees and will share his unique perspective of how we can live with trees to mutual benefit. https://www.williambryantlogan.com/about-contact
Gardening for Birds
Our second morning speaker is Ian Stewart, PhD, was raised in Newcastle, England and received a doctorate in ornithology from the University of Leicester. He has conducted research on tree swallows and bluebirds and how local land management activities are affecting bird numbers and diversity. Ian is currently an Ornithologist at the Delaware Nature Society, studying the effects of non-native plants on birds and a lecturer at Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, DE. Learn more about Ian It All Adds Up - Interview with Birding Experts Ian Stewart and Charles Shattuck - Delaware Nature Society
Planting the New Paradigm
The first afternoon speaker is Jeff Lorenz is the founder of Refugia Design, an ecological landscape design/build and stewardship firm known for an immersive, naturalistic design aesthetic and meadow expertise. Since 2015, Refugia has designed native landscapes for both residential and commercial green spaces in Greater Philadelphia and the Jersey Shore. They have mapped the impact of their 120+ native habitats via the Ecological Greenway Network--an ecological corridor for native plants designed to promote connectivity for wildlife and restore ecosystem function. In 2021, they added an additional 47 “stepping stone” gardens to the Greenway. Jeff has created a podcast about native plants
Growing Under Cover with Niki Jabbour
Join award-winning author Niki Jabbour as she shares her techniques for growing more food, reducing pest problems, and dealing with unpredictable weather in her Nova Scotia vegetable garden. She’ll spotlight a wide variety of season extenders like shade cloth, row cover, cold frames, and polytunnels, as well as show you how to use garden covers to prevent damage from deer, flea beetles, and cabbageworms. She’ll also share some of her stand-out crops and varieties for fall and winter harvesting.
About Niki: Niki Jabbour is the best-selling, award-winning author of four books including The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener and Growing Under Cover. She’s a two-time winner of the American Horticultural Society’s Book Award, and the long-time host of the radio show The Weekend Gardener. Find Niki on SavvyGardening.com.