2022 Fall Study Day

October 29, 2022
Saturday, October 29, 2022, 10:00 am – 3:45 pm
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver

REGISTRATION 

$50 for members, $60 for non-members and all tickets at the door 

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY 

To register please send either 

1) an e-transfer to lizatvhpg@gmail.com with YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS AND THE NAME(S) of registrants in the note section; we cannot contact you or register you without your email address and your name(s); 

2) mail a cheque, payable to the ‘Vancouver Hardy Plant Group’, to Lindsay MacPherson, 11662 Carr Street, Maple Ridge, V2X 5M9. Cheques must be received by October 25. 

Antony O’Rourke, English Heritage Down House, Head Gardener, Downe, England 

“Charles Darwin – No Ordinary Life” 

“The Living Landscape Laboratory at Down – How Darwin used his own back yard to test his groundbreaking theory of Evolution by means of Natural Selection 1842-1882” 

 Antony is a graduate of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. He has worked in numerous botanical gardens including the University of Bristol, Tresco Abbey in the Isles of Scilly and the Jerusalem Botanical gardens in Israel where he managed their centre for plant introduction and propagation. He ran his own very successful company in west London designing and maintaining high end gardens for a diverse client base. Now in his sixth year at Down, Antony is a passionate plants person and has amassed extensive knowledge in the cultivation and natural history of many plant groups. His particular passion is for carnivorous plants, orchids, tropical plants and hardy herbaceous plants. He is a passionate advocate of organic gardening and wildlife conservation. Says Antony, ‘I enjoy the challenge of presenting the gardens and landscape as the Darwins would have known it, from the ornamental beds through to the produce grown in the kitchen garden and of course bringing to life the narrative of the experimental Mr. Darwin at Down’ 

Riz Reyes, Assistant Director of Heronswood Garden, Kingston, WA 

“Grow: Life Lessons from the Garden”

A young gardeners perspective in fine gardening and plant collecting. Join horticulturist and children’s book author, Riz Reyes, for a presentation that’s both informative and personal as he shares stories about extraordinary plants and introduces his new book “Grow: A family guide to plants and how to grow them”.   

An early curiosity about fruits and flowers in his native Philippines developed into award-winning garden/floral displays and recognition in the Pacific Northwest gardening scene at an early age. Riz Reyes immersed himself in the remarkable diversity of plants that thrived in the maritime region and finds every opportunity to seek out and work with the most uncommon selections in the trade and generously shares his knowledge and experience with others. 

He earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Environmental Horticulture and Urban Forestry from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. His own enterprise, RHR Horticulture, focuses on garden education/consulting and floral design. 

Riz published his first children’s non-fiction book in March 2022 titled “Grow: A family guide to plants and how to grow them”.   

Gary Lewis, Owner of Phoenix Perennials, Richmond, BC 

“The Complete Talk of Groundcovers” 

Gary will present to us the practical and environmental benefits of ground covers, strategies and opportunities for using ground covers, and ground covers in design from small to large gardens. It will include images from the book and likely additional images not included in the book from gardens and travels on at least four continents. Gary is a regular speaker at garden clubs and has appeared many times on radio and television. He has written for a variety of gardening magazines and in fall 2022 his encyclopedia, “The Complete Book of Ground Covers”, will be published by Timber Press. This compendium focuses on 4000 different ground covers for the temperate gardening world accompanied by 650 photos he took on travels around the world. 

In 2013 Gary was selected as Communicator of the Year by the BC Landscape and Nursery Association and in 2017 was the recipient of the Retail Sales Award from the Perennial Plant Association. 

Gary is an avid traveller and has led botanical and garden tours to Holland and Belgium, New Zealand, South Africa, and Western Australia with future trips planned to Ireland, France, and a return to South Africa. 

Spring 2023 Study Day

Saturday, March 11, 2023 – 10:00 am – 3:45 pm

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver

Registration

$85 for members, $95 for non-members and all tickets at the door  Note: the higher price is only for this particular study day

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY

To register for the Spring Study Day, EITHER

1) Please either send an e-transfer to lizatvhpg@gmail.com  with you name or names in the note section; or,

2) send a cheque, payable to the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group, to

Elizabeth Taylor
3642 West 1st Avenue
Vancouver, V6R 1H2

Cheques must be received by February 28. 

 

plantsman extraordinaire, author, windcliffe, washington
Dan Hinkley

Dan Hinkley, Plantsman extraordinaire, author, Windcliff, Washington.

Talks:
“Four decades in two gardens:
Heronswood and Wincliff”
&
“In pursuit of plants:
reason process and places”

A Vancouver Hardy Plant Group favourite, Dan Hinkley is a renowned plantsman, nurseryman, horticulturist, author and public speaker. With gardening and botany as lifelong passions, Dan completed a MSc. in Urban Horticulture at UW. He came to the gardening connoisseurs’ attention with his Heronswood Nursery (Kingston Washington, started 1987), full of his wild collected plants, and his renowned catalogue written with keen observation and sharp wit. After selling Heronswood in 2000, Dan continued to collect worldwide and propagate there until 2006, with over 2,400 plants listed in the catalogue.

In 2000, Dan and his partner, architect Robert Jones, created a new home and garden that embraces our Mediterranean climate, named Windcliff, on a bluff above Puget Sound near Indianola. “Windcliff: A Story of People, Plants, and Gardens” is Dan’s 2020 book about how this garden embraces his experiences in the world of plants.

jimi blake proprietor and author, hunting brook bardens, wicklow, ireland
Jimi Blake

Jimi Blake, Proprietor and Author, Hunting Brook Gardens, Wicklow, Ireland.

Talks:
“A Beautiful Obsession”
&
“Woodland Plants”

Jimi Blake is a self-confessed ‘plantaholic’, international lecturer, columnist, author of ‘A
Beautiful Obsession’, and co-host of Ireland’s Garden Heroes.
Jimi is also the custodian and visionary creator of Hunting Brook Gardens in Co. Wicklow
where he grows the largest and most exciting private plant collection in Ireland. This is Jimi’s
living canvas where he experiments and innovates playing with colour, shapes, textures and
forms to create a thoroughly immersive experience with fresh surprises at every turn.
When he’s not creating in the garden, he’s working on his other big passion – teaching and
sharing his knowledge through his online courses, workshops, lectures and tours.

 

 

VHPG is adding a list of interesting websites, videos, newsletters, and Instagram accounts on our website. Perhaps this will give us a garden boost to where we can’t go in real life. If you would like to add to this list, please send a note to danacromie@gmail.com

 

Virtual Chelsea  https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/virtual-chelsea

Virtual Kew  www.kew.org/about-us/virtual-kew-wakehurst

The Gardener – A film about Frank Cabot at Les Quatre Vents https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/the-gardener

Facebook only

Peter Korn – facebook.com/peter.korn.5

Tim Ingram – facebook.com/gillian.ingram.773

On line zoom lectures from Xerces Society for Invertebrate conservationhttps://xerces.org/events

Margaret Roach, A Way to Garden Websitehttps://awaytogarden.com/

Garden Masterclass with Annie Guilfoyle and Noel Kingsbury, Online Blog and Podcasts

https://www.gardenmasterclass.org/blog-and-podcasts

Sarah Raven Websitehttps://www.sarahraven.com/

Huw Richards Grow Foods Organically YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeaKRrrpWiQFJJmiuon2WoQ

Great Dixter Zoom Lectures – next, May 9th – https://www.greatdixtershop.co.uk/PBSCCatalog.asp?ItmID=31488019

The Garden Museum, London newsletter – https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/

Art of the Garden: Dan Pearson – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2w0HILcvLw

Dan Hinkley’s weekly at Heronswood – https://heronswoodgarden.org/video/

Ian Young’s Bulb Log, Scotland, weekly digest – http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/

danger garden, a daily garden blog from Portland – http://www.thedangergarden.com/

Instagram accounts worth following

John Grimshaw, Yorkshire Arboretum

Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter head gardener

Aaron Bertelsen, Great Dixter veg gardener, kitchen and house manager – 

Great Dixter House and Gardens

Tony Kirkham, Kew

Sue Wynn-Jones, Crug Farm Plants 

James Hitchmough, University of Sheffield, Horticulture Ecology and Landscape Architecture

Nigel Dunnett, University of Sheffield, Planting Design and Urban Horticulture

Jimi Blake, Huntingbrook Gardens, Ireland

Gravetye Manor, Gardens Team

Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens

Panayoti Kelaidis, Denver Botanic Garden

Sean Hogan, Cistus Nursery, Portland 

Sue Milliken, Far Reaches, Washington 

Amy Sanderson, Stellata Plants, Saanich 

Stellata Plants, Saanich 

Liberto Dario, grower and tour guide, Greece 

Fall 2024 Study Day

Saturday, November 2, 2024 – 10:00 am – 3:45 pm

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre

1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver

Registration
$50 for members, $60 for non-members and all tickets at the door.

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY

To register for the Fall Study Day, EITHER

1) Payment by e-transfer to lizatvhpg@gmail.com  with your name or names in the note section; or,

2) Send a cheque, payable to the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group, to:

Elizabeth Taylor
3642 West 1st Avenue
Vancouver, V6R 1H2

Cheques must be received by October 25. 

FALL STUDY DAY OUTLINE
10:00 – 10:10 Vancouver Hardy Plant Group notices and introduction
10:10 – 11:10 Tony Spencer – “Open Source: Origins of the New Perennial Movement”
11:10 – 11:35  Complimentary coffee – you are encouraged to bring your own cup
11:35 – 12:35 Loree Bohl – “Danger Garden, Contained”
12:35 – 1:20  Lunch – please bring your own
1:20 – 1:30    Door prizes and settling down
1:30 – 2:30   Philip MacDougall – “Japan Meander”
2:30 – 3:30  Tony Spencer – “Wildscaping: Planting Design with a Canadian Twist”

Link to Philips slide list Japan meander

Tony Spencer

Tony Spencer,  is the internationally-recognized Canadian writer, digital creator and planting designer behind The New Perennialist, an influential blog focused on Explorations in Naturalistic Planting Design. (www.theperennialist.com) He also hosts The New Perennialist talks, a webinar series featuring influential design innovators in the genre.
In 2024, Tony won his second ‘Top Landscape Design Award of Excellence’ from the US-based Perennial Plant Association (PPA) and in 2023, he was named PPA ‘Garden Media Promoter’ of the year. He is also winner of the 2024 Media Awards’ ‘Silver Laurel Medal of Achievement for Social Media’ presented by GardenComm.

Day to day, Tony is a puckish ringleader for the naturalistic movement all while experimenting on a new series of wild-ish gardens at his beloved cabin in the rolling hills of Mono, Ontario.
The New Perennial Movement has inspired designers worldwide to pursue a more naturalistic approach in their work. In his first talk for us, “Open Source: Origins of the New Perennial Movement”, Tony will trace the movement back to its early roots in northern Europe with a look at the seminal figures including Piet Oudolf who started it all. Then he will loop around for an overview of the New Perennial Movement and how designers and gardeners are connecting through their uncommon passion for a wilder vision of the modern garden.
Tony’s second talk “Wildscaping: Planting Design with a Canadian Twist” was recently presented at Italy’s ‘Landscape Festival’ which is recognized worldwide for its visionary content on design and ecological health. It offers an overview of Tony’s diverse projects- woodlands, ponds, green roofs, dry gardens- with a focus on Wildscaping and designing for climate change.

Loree Bohl

Loree Bohl, lives in Portland, previously Spokane and Seattle, making a complete PNW triangle. After purchasing her Portland home in 2005, Loree fell in love with the vibrant horticulture community in Oregon.
Her love for agaves, cactus and all things spiky—despite the fact she lives in “rainy” Oregon—was the inspiration for her blog’s name, “Danger Garden.” She publishes new stories 3 times a week that include photos of her garden, her travels to other private and public gardens, visits to nurseries and other random “planty” things she finds interesting.

Loree has served on the board of directors for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon and Pacific Horticulture and is on the Garden Bloggers Fling advisory committee. She has written for Pacific Horticulture; the Oregon Association of Nurseries magazine, Digger; the Rock Garden Quarterly, and Better Homes and Gardens. Her first book “Fearless Gardening: Be Bold, Break the Rules, Grow What You Love” was published by Timber Press in 2020. She practices the fine art of garden “cramscaping” and is a firm believer there is always room for one more plant.
Loree is a fearless gardener whose own garden features a broad array of containers, many of which are unique combinations of found objects, most of which required seasonal movement or reconfiguring. Her talk for us “Danger Garden, Contained’. Is newly created for our Study Day and will focus on these container plantings.

 

Philip MacDougall

Philip MacDougall, has long run his not-for-profit nursery, Chlorophyllia, a specialty nursery that focuses on woodlanders ignored by the ravenous deer. Philip scours the world (wild and marketplace) for new and interesting plants, with a fine focus on epimediums and ferns.
He has been a vendor at our study weekends and various specialty sales around the Lower Mainland for decades, and his home garden/nursery was on the Vancouver Hardy Plant open garden Fraser Valley day in 2023. A discerning reader of Dan Hinkley and Far Reaches catalogues, or the UBCBG database, will note many subtle references to Philip’s collections.

Like Loree, Phillip’s talk “Japan Meander” is newly created for VHPG members, his description “A visit to only far too few of my many favorite Japanese plants, peeks at several of Japan’s best gardens, plus onsen, temples, udon and an atomic bomb. I’ll talk on how Japan’s aesthetic has influenced our own much more western garden.”

_______________________________________________________________________________

VHPG is adding a list of interesting websites, videos, newsletters, and Instagram accounts on our website. Perhaps this will give us a garden boost to where we can’t go in real life. If you would like to add to this list, please send a note to danacromie@gmail.com

 

Virtual Chelsea  https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/virtual-chelsea

Virtual Kew  www.kew.org/about-us/virtual-kew-wakehurst

The Gardener – A film about Frank Cabot at Les Quatre Vents https://www.tvo.org/video/documentaries/the-gardener

Facebook only

Peter Korn – facebook.com/peter.korn.5

Tim Ingram – facebook.com/gillian.ingram.773

On line zoom lectures from Xerces Society for Invertebrate conservationhttps://xerces.org/events

Margaret Roach, A Way to Garden Websitehttps://awaytogarden.com/

Garden Masterclass with Annie Guilfoyle and Noel Kingsbury, Online Blog and Podcasts

https://www.gardenmasterclass.org/blog-and-podcasts

Sarah Raven Websitehttps://www.sarahraven.com/

Huw Richards Grow Foods Organically YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeaKRrrpWiQFJJmiuon2WoQ

Great Dixter Zoom Lectures – next, May 9th – https://www.greatdixtershop.co.uk/PBSCCatalog.asp?ItmID=31488019

The Garden Museum, London newsletter – https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/

Art of the Garden: Dan Pearson – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2w0HILcvLw

Dan Hinkley’s weekly at Heronswood – https://heronswoodgarden.org/video/

Ian Young’s Bulb Log, Scotland, weekly digest – http://www.srgc.org.uk/logs/

danger garden, a daily garden blog from Portland – http://www.thedangergarden.com/

Instagram accounts worth following

John Grimshaw, Yorkshire Arboretum

Fergus Garrett, Great Dixter head gardener

Aaron Bertelsen, Great Dixter veg gardener, kitchen and house manager – 

Great Dixter House and Gardens

Tony Kirkham, Kew

Sue Wynn-Jones, Crug Farm Plants 

James Hitchmough, University of Sheffield, Horticulture Ecology and Landscape Architecture

Nigel Dunnett, University of Sheffield, Planting Design and Urban Horticulture

Jimi Blake, Huntingbrook Gardens, Ireland

Gravetye Manor, Gardens Team

Beth Chatto’s Plants and Gardens

Panayoti Kelaidis, Denver Botanic Garden

Sean Hogan, Cistus Nursery, Portland 

Sue Milliken, Far Reaches, Washington 

Amy Sanderson, Stellata Plants, Saanich 

Stellata Plants, Saanich 

Liberto Dario, grower and tour guide, Greece 

SPRING STUDY DAY – Saturday, March 2nd, 2019

Spring Study Day

Saturday, March 2, 2019

To register for the Spring Study Day, please forward you cheque, payable to the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group, for $45 (members pre‐paid), $50 (non‐members and all tickets at the door), to Lindsay Macpherson, 11662 Carr St, Maple Ridge, BC, V2X 5M9. If you are purchasing for others, please indicate their names and whether they are member or non‐members. Cheques should be received by February 22, 2019, which will allow time for your name to be copied onto a name tag that you will collect and wear after signing in at the pre‐paid table, thus helping the committee in providing orderly access to the event. Cheques received after that date will be kept in the order they have been received and may or may not gain you entry to the event.

 SPRING STUDY DAY OUTLINE

10:00 – 10:10 Vancouver Hardy Plant Group notices and introduction

10:10 – 11:10 Panayoti Kelaidis – 40 Years at Denver Botanic Gardens

11:10 – 11:35 Complimentary coffee – you are encouraged to bring your own cup

11:35 – 12:35 John Anderson – Plant Hunting in Cultivation

12:45 – 1:30 Lunch – please bring your own

1:30 – 1:40 Door prizes and settling down

1:40 – 2:40 Panayoti Kelaidis – Genus: Iris

2:40 – 3:40 John Anderson – Gardens I Have Managed

3:45 Conclusion

John Anderson, Keeper of the Gardens, Windsor Great Park, UK

John Anderson began his garden training at the National Botanic Gardens at Glasnevin, Dublin and went on to study at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. His first appointment as Head Gardener was at the famous Mt. Usher Gardens in Co. Wicklow, where he was also curator of the National Collection of Eucryphia, Eucalyptus and Nothofagus. Subsequently he undertook an appointment with the National Trust for Scotland in Inverewe, and then in 2006 moved to Exbury in southern England, home of the Rothschilds, located among 200 acres of woodland gardens along the coast of Hampshire. At each of these later gardens he was responsible for curating National Collections of various species of interest in our area.

John remained at Exbury for ten years before moving on to an even more prestigious appointment in 2016.  As the fourth Keeper of the Gardens at Windsor Great Park, he is responsible for the Savill Garden, Valley Gardens, and Her Majesty’s Private Garden at Frogmore.

In addition to his work at Windsor Great Park, John is also Vice-Chairman of the RHS Plant Committee and an RHS Judge.

 john anderson

 

 

Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator & Director of Outreach,

Denver Botanic Gardens, CO, USA

 

Panayoti Kelaidis represents Denver Botanic Gardens in educational, professional, and promotional endeavors in his role as an expert in horticulture, science, and art. A past president of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society (NARGS) and the American Penstemon Society, he is the recipient of the Award of Excellence from National Garden Clubs and the Arthur Hoyt Scott Medal from Swarthmore College.

Panayoti’s association with the Denver Botanic Gardens spans almost 40 years, but he was already an enthusiastic gardener at age 8.  Much of his life has been spent exploring alpine trees, ferns, cacti, bulbs, and xeric plants both in the US and more exotic locations. He also co-authored the first comparative study of the steppe climate regions of North and South America, Africa and Central Asia, and has recently returned from a tour of the plant-rich high elevation areas of China.

  panayoti kelaidis

FALL STUDY DAY – Saturday October 27th, 2018

FALL STUDY DAY – Saturday October 27th, 2018

Time: 10:00am – 3:30pm

H.R. MacMillan Space Centre,

1100 Chestnut Street, Vancouver

To register for the Spring Study Day, please forward your cheque, payable to the Vancouver Hardy Plant Group, for $45 (members pre-paid), $50 (non-members and all tickets at the door), to Lindsay Macpherson, 11662 Carr St., Maple Ridge, BC, V2X 5M9. If you are purchasing for others, please indicate their names and whether they are members or non-members. Cheques should be received by October 19, 2018, which will allow time for your name to be copied onto a name tag that you will collect and wear after signing in at the pre-paid table, thus helping the committee in providing orderly access to the event. Cheques received after that date will be kept in the order they have been received and may or may not gain you entry to the event.

 SPEAKERS

Matthew Wilson

Matthew Wilson Gardens, England

Matthew will give two talks – “Making a Garden” and “Star Plants for Small Gardens”

Matthew Wilson
Matthew Wilson

 

Matthew Wilson is an award-winning garden and landscape designer, writer, radio and television broadcaster and lecturer.  He has been a regular participant on Gardeners’ Question Time on BBC Radio 4 since 2009.  Matthew is a regular contributor to The Financial Times and often writes on horticultural topics for the paper’s House and Home section. He also writes extensively for other gardening publications including BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine, The Garden, Gardens Illustrated and more.

In 2012 Matthew was named as Journalist of the Year by the Garden Media Guild for his writing in the Financial Times.

 

 

 

Richie Steffen

Director and Curator,
Elizabeth Miller Garden, WA

Richie will give us a new talk – “Gardening in Dry Shade”

Richie Steffen
Richie Steffen

 

A well-known personality on the Pacific Northwest horticulture scene, Richie joined the Miller Garden in 2000, bringing with him a variety of horticultural expertise. After moving from Maryland to Seattle in 1989, he worked at Sky Nursery in Shoreline, as propagator/nursery manager for the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden and as a part-time instructor for the horticulture program at Edmonds Community College. He currently serves as a board member of the Rhododendron Species Foundation and the Hardy Fern Foundation (past president).

Richie is co-author of “Plant Lover’s Guide to Ferns” published by Timber Press in 2015.

 

 

Ernie & Marietta O’Byrne,

Northwest Garden Nursery, Eugene, OR

Ernie and Marietta’s talk will be based on their book “A Tapestry Garden”

tapestry garden
The Tapestry Garden – Marietta and Ernie O’Byrne

 

Ernie and Marietta are the co-owners of Northwest Garden Nursery in Eugene, Oregon. Formerly a retail nursery specializing in unusual plants, it is now a wholesale nursery specializing in their creation the “Winter Jewels” series of hellebores.

Marietta and Ernie’s garden, situated on one and a half acres, is filled with an incredible array of plants from around the world. By consciously leveraging the garden’s many microclimates, they have created a stunning patchwork of exuberant plants that is widely considered one of America’s most outstanding private gardens. In A Tapestry Garden, the O’Byrne’s share their deep knowledge of plants and essential garden advice.