Adding Pizazz to Your Garden!
Details and registration on-line at www.mgsoc.org
The Master Gardener Society of Oakland County, Inc. is pleased to announce that tickets will go on sale on January 1, 2016 for our 4th Annual Educational Garden Conference “Gardening and All That Jazz – Adding Pizazz to YOUR Garden.” The date of the conference is Saturday, April 23, 2016. Early bloomers registration fee will be $70, after March 14 the fee rises to $80.
The educational conference is a day-long event and will again be held at Oakland Schools Conference Center, 2111 Pontiac Lake Road, in Waterford. This conference is open to the public; you need not be a Master Gardener to attend. As in the past, you will be able to purchase your tickets online or at MGSOC events. We will provide more information closer to the date when ticket sales begin.
This event also includes a large garden market of many local vendors and artisans selling garden-related artwork, gifts and plants. Continental breakfast, lunch, snacks and program materials are included. Live jazz entertainment by pianist Kerry Price and the Dave Tatrow Quartet.
The 2016 educational keynote speakers will again include innovative, nationally-known speakers: Karen Bussolini (two presentations), Ellen Ecker Ogden and Barry Glick. A brief overview of their topics is listed below and we have included their web sites for further research on their amazing credentials.
Karen Bussolini – Website: www.karenbussolini.com
Karen Bussolini is a widely-published garden photographer, speaker, writer, NOFA-Accredited Organic Land Care Professional and eco-friendly garden coach. She has been a gardener as long as she can remember. She trained as a painter and had a career as an architectural photographer before turning her attention entirely to gardens. Her work explores the many ways gardening connects us to our place on earth and to each other. She lives in Connecticut.
Jazzing Up the Garden with Color, Contrast and Movement
Savoring sizzling plant combinations in other peoples’ gardens, while being dissatisfied with her own, led her to look a lot closer at what made certain combinations work – or not. It became clear that a truly satisfying garden is much more than just a bunch of nice plants. It’s boring if plants just sit there next to each other – they need to interact, to carry on a conversation, to have dynamic contrasts. She has packed this talk with dozens of exciting plant combinations photographed in gardens across the country. Starting with simple combinations, and an explanation of how the gardener used color or texture, gesture, light-reflecting qualities, repetition, color echoes and other qualities, the talk progresses to more complex schemes. Plants with special character and plants that move – or appear to – enliven the mix. Jazzing Up the Garden with Color, Contrast and Movement conveys simple intuitive ways of thinking about combining plants that anyone can use easily – without angst or color wheel.
Bringing It All Home: Lessons in Garden Photography, Garden Making and the Art of Seeing
There’s nothing like looking through the viewfinder of a camera to tell you whether a garden composition works or not. Photography is an abstraction, a discipline and a great tool for understanding and designing gardens. The process involved in making meaningful photographs – setting an intention, paying attention to framing the scene, studying mass, light, composition and point of view – works as well for garden-making as it does for photography. Creating compelling images requires a visually interesting subject and a commitment to seeing well that naturally translates into garden-making. Focusing – both literally and figuratively – on wildly different kinds of gardens all over the country has been a great education.
Ellen Ecker Ogden – Web Site: www.ellenogden.com
Ellen Ecker Ogden is the co-founder of The Cook’s Garden seed catalog, and author of five books on cooking and garden design, including The Complete Kitchen Garden. Her articles and kitchen garden have appeared in national publications including Martha Stewart Living, Eating Well, Organic Gardening, Better Homes and Gardens and The New York Times. She lives in Vermont.
The Art of Growing Food
Be inspired to elevate an ordinary vegetable garden into an extraordinary kitchen garden. A true kitchen garden opens your senses both in the garden and in the kitchen. You’ll start dinner by walking barefoot into the garden, bringing in a basket full of tiny artichokes, fresh peas, purple basil tips, tiny rainbow chard or spoonshaped mache. In this presentation, you’ll learn the six steps to success based on classic design techniques. Participants will discover new techniques to grow food in elegant and artful ways. The goal is to teach new ways to design and plant a kitchen garden for productivity, low maintenance and pleasure.
Barry Glick – Web Site: www.sunfarm.com; www.bluetoad.com/publication/?i=36858
Barry Glick founded Sunshine Farm & Gardens in Greenbriar County, West Virginia and is an expert in propagation, native plants, and hellebores. His collection of plants now numbers more than 10,000, many unknown to cultivation. He exchanges seeds and plants with arboretums, botanic gardens, nurseries and private gardens in virtually every county in the world. He is a prolific author of articles for the most prestigious publications and a regular columnist for Washington Gardener Magazine. Barry will also be bringing plants from his farm which will be sold at the seminar.
Woodland Wonders from the Wild
An enlightening, entertaining and educational look at some of the plants that we overlook on our woodland hikes. Some of the most interesting and unusual wildflowers are growing in our own backyards right under our noses. Join native plant expert Barry Glick for a fascinating wild wander into the wonderful world of woodland wildflowers.
For more information, contact: Lynn Boehmer, 2016 Conference Coordinator, 248-410-3039 (atboehmer@aol.com) or Sally Bolle, Conference Program Coordinator, 248-909-8668 (sallybolle@comcast.net).