An Engaging Spring Symposium

Our annual spring symposium, Create An Engaging Garden, went very well today. The weather, while cooler than it has been in the past two weeks, was still pleasant and most of the attendees were able to enjoy the gardens during our breaks. It looked like it wanted to rain all day but it never materialized. As seen in the top photo, we had a fairly full house with around 140 in attendance. It was nice to accomodate everyone around tables and we had a lot of help this morning with getting set-up for this event (Kris, Polly, Lori, Mark S., Janice, Big John, Amanda and many more). Directly above are our three other speakers (besides me). Tim Gruner, on the far left, is the Garden Curator at Anderson Gardens in Rockford, IL. He did a great talk on how patterns and rhythms in nature can inspire peace and tranquility. I really got some insight in to how and why many elements were placed as they were at Anderson Gardens, the premiere Japanese Garden in North America. Go visit this garden! Evelyn Hadden, garden writer and author from Minneapolis, then spoke on story gardens and her talk was very inspirational in stressing the importance of the garden for memories, healing and a personal space. Evelyn also signed copies of her neat book (see to the right) which looks to be a great resource. Dr. Norm Lownds (above photo, far right) then did an engaging presentation on whimsy in the garden. Norm is an Associate Professor of Horticulture at Michigan State University (E. Lansing, MI) and is also curator of the 4H Children's Garden on campus there. I've been to that children's garden three times and it continues to be the one by which all others that have followed, will be judged. It is an amazing, "hands on" space and Norm's infectious enthusiasm was evident to everyone. He certainly gave Kris and me some awesome ideas for element and programs for our children's garden. To the left is another of our pasque flowers (Pulsatilla vulgaris) blooming in the alpine garden and to the right are the first of our 5,000 white tulips (Tulipa) blooming out front. Unfortunately, these are timed for Mother's Day and will be long gone (peaking in 7-10 days from now). However, with more visitors coming early this year, many will still catch peak bulb time regardless.

Our lunch today was delicious and we had all sorts of snacks throughout the day. Kudos to Polly and Lori for keeping the food, etc. going and Kris did a masterful job orchestrating everything. Janice and many others were a huge help today as well. My talk on sensory gardens went well and we concluded another successful symposium and I think the feedback will be quite positive. Below is Leslie L. (far left) with some of her students from Shepherd's College (Union Grove, WI). The students donated some wonderful plants for our attendees and we appreciate their generosity in supporting our event. These same students are those that helped last fall with garden clean-up and bulb planting. At the bottom is are the showy blooms of the Prairie Gem Ussurian pear (Pyrus ussuriensis 'MorDak') near our main parking lot. Almost all of our ornamental pears are at peak right now. Back to business Monday and the remainder of the ground staff (Marv, Marianne, Terry, Janice, Jenny and Big John) will all start back a week from this Monday.