Daily Archives: July 23, 2016

Friday, August 19 – Sunday, August 21 – In The Garden Weekend

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Find your green thumb at The Homestead Resort’s In The Garden weekend over the dates of August 19-21, 2016. You will learn time-honored gardening tips from top professionals and enjoy your choice of hands-on garden themed classes amid the resort’s breathtaking scenery. Speakers include Craig LeHoullier, gardener, author and educator, Mark Weathington, Director of the JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University and Andre Viette, Horticulturalist, author and lecturer.

Possessing a PhD in chemistry, Craig LeHoullier’s professional career involved various positions in a major pharmaceutical company. Craig’s passion for tomatoes in particular exploded after joining the Seed Savers Exchange in 1986, and all gardens since focus on open pollinated (non-hybrid) varieties, in a wide range of colors, sizes and flavors. He is responsible for naming, developing and introducing many varieties, such as Cherokee Purple and Lucky Cross, and has been co-leading a unique all-volunteer project to create new dwarf-growing varieties. The project is responsible for 25 new tomatoes available through a variety of seed companies, particularly valuable for space-constrained gardeners who wish to grow wonderful tomatoes on decks or patios.

Mark Weathington is the Director of the JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University where he is passionate in his work to connect people with plants. His career in public horticulture has also included the Norfolk Botanical Garden where he served as Director of Horticulture and the Atlanta Botanical Garden as a horticulturist. Mark travels extensively searching for new plants to diversify the American landscape and lecturing on a variety of topics in horticulture to further the JC Raulston Arboretum’s vision of “Planning and Planting a Better World.”  Mark is currently writing Growing the Southeast Garden, a modern guide to gardening in the southeast, for Timber Press.

Horticulturist, author and lecturer, Andre Viette earned his Biological Science Certificate at The State University of New York at Farmingdale, and is a graduate of The School of Floriculture of Cornell University. Mr. Viette hosts his own talk show entitled “In the Garden” and has written several books including Beautiful Roses Made Easy, Mid-Atlantic Gardener’s Guide, and his newest book Mid-Atlantic Getting Started Garden Guide. He has developed André Viette Farm and Nursery in Fishersville, Virginia, which grows over 3,000 varieties of perennials for the sun and shade.

For complete package details, and reservations, visit https://www.omnihotels.com/hotels/homestead-virginia/specials/in-the-garden-weekend

National Garden Clubs Million Pollinator Garden Challenge

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Because of its renowned reputation, and the strength of its membership, National Garden Clubs has been invited to be an Inaugural Network Partner of the National Pollinator Garden Network, recently formed to help establish one million gardens to assist in restoring critical pollinator population recovery in the United States. Over the next two years, The Network will bring together the science and garden capabilities of industry with the outreach of nongovernmental organizations to empower a million private citizens and organizations to plant pollinator gardens nationwide.

Federal agencies have been directed to take steps to protect and restore pollinator populations due to recent declines in the number and distribution of pollinating insects causing significant concern among ecologists and agricultural interests. These declines include our managed bee population used in agricultural, native bees, monarch butterflies (suffering a decline of more than 90% over the past two decades), and many others. In addition to being important to natural ecosystems across our country, pollinators are critical to one third of our food production. While there may be many reasons for pollinator decline, experts agree that the overall loss in the amount and distribution of habitat and food plants is a critical contributor.

This is an unprecedented collaboration and members will be providing food and habitat for pollinators in our home gardens (can even be a container on a deck or a condo window planter), as well as through public garden projects, youth garden projects, nursing homes, botanical gardens, business areas, and government offices. Monetary awards will be available for member clubs, and the National Garden Clubs plan to coordinate grants to clubs that will plant pollinator gardens with our youth. It is SO important to teach our youth how to take care of our land, our wildlife, our food supply for the future. Who will teach them if we don’t?

Register your pollinator habitat! Visit http://millionpollinatorgardens.org/ to buzz over to the Pollinator Partnership Website where you can create an account, register your pollinator site and see an interactive map of sites that have been registered. The registry is located at http://pollinator.org/mpgcmap/. It’s free and easy. Explore other pollinator friendly SHARE landscapes all over the globe. Be a part of the movement now.

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