GardenDesignOnline

Happenings April 2021

SELECTED EVENTS AROUND THE COUNTRY:

ORCHID SHOWS:
Thru April 4, Spotlight on Orchids, NY Botanical Garden
Thru April 11, Orchid Daze, Atlanta Botanical Garden
Thru April 11, Orchids Forever, Cleveland Botanical Garden

EVENTS:

April 1, "Under Western Skies," Garden Conservancy ONLINE
2pm Eastern, Lecture, author Jennifer Jewell
April 1, "Tokachi Millenium Forest," NY Botanical Garden ONLINE
10am-11am EDT, Lecture, UK Designer Dan Pearson & Midori Shintani

April 7-10 Rhode Island Home & Garden Show, Providence, RI
Rhode Island Convention Center
April 9, Native Plants & Public Spaces Symposium, ONLINE
1-4pm Eastern, Native Plants Trust
April 9, "Hanging Nasturtiums: Behind the Scenes," ONLINE
Noon-1pm Eastern, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
April 10-Oct 31, KUSAMA: Cosmic Nature, NY Botanical Garden
Special lectures and other events

April 15, "Studio Xero," Garden Conservancy ONLINE
2pm Eastern, Lecture, Chilean designer Ximena Nazal

April 17-24, Historic Virginia Garden Week
April 17-24 Virtual California Native Plant Week
April 17, Belle Isle Oudolf Garden, Detroit ONLINE
11am-noon Eastern, Lecture, designer Piet Oudolf, Fernwood Botanical Garden
April 18, Spring by the Sea Garden Tour, Charleston, SC
10am-3pm, Sullivan's Island & Old Village Mount Pleasant
April 19, "Creating Windcliff," ONLINE
6:30pm Pacific, Lecture by Dan Hinkley, CA Hort Society
April 19, "Landscapes of Frank Lloyd Wright," ONLINE
6:30pm Eastern, Lecture, National Building Museum

April 20-22  Earth Day 2021
Various events around the country
April 22-25, 74th Colonial Williamsburg Garden Symposium
ONLINE or In-Person, "Celebrate Planet Earth."
April 27, Spotlight on Design, National Building Museum, ONLINE
6:30-8pm Eastern, David Rubin Land Collective

April 28, "The New Naturalism," Lecture, ONLINE
7-8:30pm Eastern, Author Kelly D. Norris, Grow Native MA

April 29, "A Year at Clove Brook Farm," Garden Conservancy ONLINE
2pm Eastern, Lecture, Artist Christopher Spitzmiller
April 29, Antique Garden Furniture Fair, ONLINE
NY Botanical Garden

LOOKAHEAD:

JUNE 5-13, Philadelphia Flower Show, Philadelphia, PA

Gold Medal Plants 2021

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) has announced its Gold Medal plants for 2021.  Each year, the Society selects plants that are easy to find, easy to grow, and that have value for wildlife.  they are particularly suited to the Mid-Atlantic region (zones 5-7), but many can also be easily grown elsewhere.  This year's winners:

George Weigel/PHS click to enlarge

Hydrangea paniculata Bobo®
This small hydrangea, just 30-36 inches tall, has heavy pure white blooms that fade to pink and persist will into the fall.  It blooms on new wood, so it will withstand hard freezes and over-pruning.  Great for the border or even in a container.  Full sun, part shade, deer resistant, too.

 

Lisa Strovinsky/PHS

Cercis canadensis 'Appalachian Red'
What's not to like about a native redbud tree with bright pink flowers?  This one gets 15-25 feet tall, it's great for smaller spaces, as a yard specimen or a street tree.  Full sun to part shade, deer resistant.

 

Lisa Srovinsky/PHS

Paeonia 'Bartzella'
This is a peony that everyone will want. It's a hybrid between a tree and herbaceous peony, with tons of fragrant brilliant yellow flowers, and it does not require staking.  It'll grow to four feet high.  Sun, medium water, deer resistant.

 

Sarcococca hookeriana 'Fragrant Valley'
Sweetbox is always a terrific groundcover, but this cultivar is more compact than others, perfect for dry shade.  It has fragrant white flowers in in early spring, and the evergreen foliage is a lovely, glossy green. It spreads slowly and takes shade to part shade, medium to low wter, and it's also deer resistant.

 

You can see all of this year's Gold Medal winners here.

Books: Going Natural

This book is going to be a classic -- at the top of every designer's "want" list for at least the next several years.  In New Naturalism: Designing and Planting a Resilient, Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden (Cool Springs Press, 2021), author and plantsman Kelly D. Norris explains how to design and install a natural garden in small spaces. 

He's not talking about planting a meadow in your front yard to increase biodiversity and attract wildlife. Rather, as he says in the introduction, the book is "a primer for a better way, hewn from considerable study of plants and their ecology.  Above all, I just want more people to plant on the wild side, to embrace the nature of gardens as they are and can be."  Designers and dedicated gardeners will particularly appreciate the planting palettes in section 2 of the book, all with photos to show you the way.  There's a planting scheme for dry gardens, front yards, rose gardens, shady gardens, courtyards, containers, and many, many more.  the book will teach you how to enjoy nature's beauty and do your part for the planet as well.

 

You might also want to consider The Ecological Gardener: How to Create Beauty and Biodiversity from the Soil Up (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2021) by British author and designer Matt Rees-Warren. This is a hands-on book that includes an array of subjects such as what to observe before you plants, how to plant hedges, making compost for all your garden needs, materials to use, and creating space for wildlife.

As Rees-Warren says in the introduction, designing an ecological garden means "letting go of design ideas of the past by letting go of our desire to hold dominion over nature, allowing it instead to lead the way." He adds, "If we design our gardens to be regenerative, the result will be functional, beautiful spaces full of life and vigour, robust enough to face the challenges of the future and elegant enough to beguile all those who walk among them."