Boston Flora

Tag: Joe Kunkel

  • Monday, June 20 – Tuesday, June 28 – Bressingham England Tour

    Renowned plant expert and garden designer, Adrian Bloom invites Massachusetts Horticultural Society members and friends to join this outstanding trip June 20 – June 28 highlighted by two days at his magnificent Bressingham Gardens. It will be a remarkable opportunity to learn design techniques, plant selection, etc. from one of the foremost horticulturists in the world.

    Adrian, his wife Rosemary, and the Bressingham staff will be providing unprecedented access and inspiring insight into the 17 acres of gardens at Bressingham, England. They are eager for their guests to gain greater understanding of what lies behind the Elm Bank Bressingham garden, and how important its future can be to MassHort’s success. It will be an unforgettable experience, and the visit will be a landmark in the development of the gardens at Elm Bank.

    In addition to Bressingham, other highlights are visits to Beth Chatto’s garden and nursery; the historic city of Cambridge and the Cambridge Botanic Garden; one of the premier plant fairs in the world at Cottesbrooke Hall (pictured below); the Royal Horticultural Society’s flagship garden at Wisley; and Savill Gardens in Windsor. Joe Kunkel and Barbara Emerson are making the arrangements for the tour.

    PRICING DETAILS:

    The tour is priced in English Pounds and is £1300 double occupancy. (As of early December that was about $2000.) The Single Supplement is £267. Air travel is on your own. Breakfast is provided every day in the hotel as well as other meals as described in the itinerary. All tips, garden entry fees, and land travel are included.

    Initial deposit is $250/person and the deadline has been extended to January 31, 2011. Final payment due March 1, 2011. If final payment is not received by March 1, 2011 deposits are forfeited. Deposits will be returned in the unlikely case the minimum number of participants is not reached.

    Checks should be made out to Have Green Thumb and sent to PO Box 304, Manchester, MA 01944. Credit cards will be accepted and processed by the American company, Blooms of Bressingham, NA.  If you would like more information, please contact Barbara Emerson at Barbara@HaveGreenthumb.com.

  • Friday, April 23, 7:00 pm – Saturday, April 24, 4:00 pm – 7th Annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposium

    Reservations are steadily coming in for this premier symposium scheduled for April 23 & 24, 2010 at The Equinox Resort (www.equinoxresort.com). For all of you who attended that 2008 symposium, you will be blown away by the resort’s new look. It has undergone a $20-million restoration including new luxury amenities, accommodations, dining options and lounges. This four-star resort, providing world class service, has a unique blend of New England charm and contemporary luxury. The 13,000 square foot Spa puts the property over the top!

    Now insert the Seventh Annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposium into this setting and you’ve got one magnificent time. The programming kicks off on Friday evening, April 23 at 7:00 p.m. and runs through Saturday at 4:00 p.m. Overnight and day-only rates are available. Here is the extraordinary speaker line-up:

    Julie Moir Messervy is an internationally known landscape designer, speaker, and writer. With over three decades of experience, five books, and numerous high-profile lectures, Julie has emerged as an innovative leader in landscape and garden design theory and practice. Her newest book, The Toronto Music Garden: Inspired by Bach was just released. It’s an in-depth guide to the conception and creation of Julie’s award-winning three-acre public garden, designed in collaboration with eminent cellist Yo-Yo Ma.  Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love was released in 2009. She has lectured at distinguished venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society and the Getty Museum. Her imaginative landscape design work has delighted clients including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Marshall Field’s, Fidelity Investments, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. In 1999, Julie completed the award-winning Toronto Music Garden, a collaboration with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the City of Toronto to create a three-acre public park based on the “First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello” by J.S. Bach. In 2005, the Toronto Music Garden received a Leonardo Da Vinci award for innovation and creativity(See picture below).  For more about Julie, visit her web site at http://www.juliemoirmesservy.com/. Julie will be presenting two talks at the Seventh Annual Great Gardens and Landscaping Symposium:

    Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love. In this inspiring lecture, Julie demystifies the art and practice of landscape design for homeowners and professionals alike. Using beautiful images, together with helpful tips, case studies, befores and afters, diagrams, and plans, she walks you through the process of turning any property into the “home outside” you’ve always dreamed of. Julie highlights many of the ideas introduced in her book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love, illustrating that good landscape design does not have to be overwhelming or expensive.

    Gardening for Your Soul. Contemplate the transcendent power of landscape as seen through Julie’s eyes, an award-winning landscape designer and author. Julie explores the deeply personal process of designing a beautiful landscape and reveals how spirituality can inform garden design and the landscapes we create on the earth.

    Heather Poire from Proven Winners will speak on creating colorful spring containers and how to refresh tired looking containers for season long beauty. Heather has worked at Pleasant View Gardens (in New Hampshire), one of the founders of Proven Winners North America, for six years and currently works as a regional sales manager. Her expertise is broad, with a specialty in Proven Winners annuals and perennials. Heather graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in Horticulture. She has been an avid gardener since 1997. Heather visits independent garden centers around the Northeast providing guidance, consulting, and garden inspiration.

    Charlie Nardozzi from the National Gardening Association will share his expertise about kitchen and vegetable gardening in his charming, easy to understand style. His talk is titled Edible Landscaping. Charlie has gardened for over 20 years, written articles for many magazines, and has authored several books including Vegetable Gardening for Dummies to be released soon. He presently is the senior horticulturist and spokesperson for the National Gardening Association. In 2005 he was the host of PBS’s Garden Smart, reaching more than 60 million households. He has also been a gardening expert on many nationally syndicated television shows, such as HGTV’s Today at Home and Way to Grow, Discovery Channel’s Home Matters, and DIY’s Ask DIY. He currently co-hosts In The Garden on a local CBS-affiliate television station in Vermont, does a weekly call-in radio show on WJOY-1230AM, and is a commentator on Vermont Public Radio.

    Joe Kunkel is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (http://www.masshort.org/) in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Joe served as the president of the Perennial Plant Association in 2005 and also owned his own nursery, Akin’ Back Farm in Lagrange, Kentucky for fifteen years. This successful nursery sold herbs and perennials and featured 18 display gardens. In 2000, he met Adrian Bloom, the head of Blooms of Bressingham. Already considered one of Great Britain’s best-known plantsmen, Bloom was becoming known in the U.S. for his stint as host of the PBS series Victory Garden, as well as being the author of numerous books on gardens and contributions to horticulture. Working with Bloom, Joe helped build five demonstration gardens around the U.S., including spectacular ones in Ohio, New York, Kentucky and California. Each garden had the common elements of promoting horticulture and utilizing donated plants and volunteer labor. The fifth Adrian Bloom project was the one that brought Joe back to his native Massachusetts. Mass Hort saw the potential for a ‘wow’ kind of garden as a counterpoint to the adjoining, formal Italianate Garden at Elm Bank. Then in March of 2008, Joe oversaw the nearly 5-acre Garden on the Greenway project in Boston. Joe helped turn a sea of mud and construction scrap into a world-class urban oasis of greenery and color. Joe’s brilliance, passion for helping others, and leadership are inspirational. Joe will speak on top performing perennials and annuals that in the New England Trial Garden located at Elm Bank’s 36-acre hands-on horticulture center. Breeding companies from all over the world contribute the newest and best varieties of annuals to the New England Trial Garden  for viewing by amateur and professional gardeners. This garden also tests new and unreleased varieties competing for All-America Selections awards, displays previous winners, and grows hundreds of cultivars submitted for evaluation by commercial plant breeders.

    Kerry Ann Mendez’s talk, Make Me Beautiful…PLEASE is all about what your gardens are trying to tell you to make them more beautiful and lower maintenance. You would be surprised at the wisdom they want to share with you. Allow her to interpret for them. The lecture’s in-depth handout is filled with tips and tricks. You’ll be waving your garden hoe and magically turning your gardens into a wonderland.Kerry’s first garden book, The Ultimate Flower Gardener’s Top Ten Lists, will be released in March, 2010.

    For more about the speakers, agenda and topics, visit www.pyours.com/Symposium2010.html.

    The Equinox Resort was eager to have the symposium back and put together amazing packages. The one night package (Friday night) includes one night’s accommodation, the Friday evening lecture, full breakfast buffet, lunch, five lectures on Saturday, refreshment break, handouts, garden gift, and all taxes and gratuities. A single is $266.38 and a double is $384.26 ($192.13 per person). The two night package includes all of the above plus Saturday night’s accommodations, Sunday breakfast buffet, and all taxes and gratuities. A single two night package is $441.08 and a double is $585.15 ($292.58 per person).

    The day only rate for all Saturday’s program includes five garden lectures, coffee at registration, refreshment break, lunch, handouts and a garden gift is only $98 per person. Day only participants may attend the Friday 7:00 pm lecture at no charge. For overnight packages, please call The Equinox Resort at (877) 854-7625 Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Day only participants register through me, Perennially Yours by using the registration form at www.pyours.com/Symposiumregister.html or calling (518) 885-3471.

  • Wednesday, September 2, 9 – 5 – Creating a Garden for Multi-Season Interest

    On Wednesday, September 2, MassHort and the Perennial Plant Association are teaming up to offer a day-long seminar titled, ‘Creating a Garden for Multi-Season Interest’. They’re bringing in some of the best writers, down-to-earth speakers and creative plantsmen in the business to Elm Bank, and you’re invited to listen, learn and ask questions.

    The speakers include Adrian Bloom (of Blooms of Bressingham); Stephanie Cohen, who has earned the title of ‘the Perennial Diva’; William Cullina of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden; ‘Victory Garden’ host and writer Roger Swain, Weston Nurseries’ Wayne Mezitt, and MassHort’s own Joe Kunkel.

    Adrian Bloom starts things off by talking about the practical and inspirational factors for success in a garden. His thesis is that we all know that perennials and grasses have a changing role to play through the seasons but how often do we consider their placing and potential impact in combination with other plants? Elm Bank’s Bressingham Garden is a study in how to make the a garden’s impact greater than the sum total of its plants.

    Award-willing author and garden designer Stephanie Cohen will focus on the autumn garden. The lushness of summer need not be followed by a whimper in the fall. Ms. Cohen will show examples of perennials and grasses that peak in autumn, berries and fruits, bark, and glorious color adorning trees and shrubs. You’ll walk away with an understanding that ‘Fallscaping’ ought to be a part of every garden’s design.

    Bill Cullina may well be the world’s most engaging garden writer. Books about perennials fill the shelves of every store, but Cullina’s newest offering in his series on plants, ‘Perennials: A New Look at an Old Favorite’, breathes new insights into a familiar subject. He will present the “psychology of perennials” – their needs, wants, and potentials. By starting at the roots, moving up the stems, leaves and flowers, Bill will provide both new and seasoned gardeners with a strong foundation for a lasting relationship with perennials.

    In the afternoon, horticulturalist Roger Swain will address the subject of garden tools. His view is that hand tools – the trowels, spades and other implements that extend our reach and power – may have evolved for evolution’s sake rather than for the benefit of the user. His presentation will be a tour through the evolution of familiar garden tools emphasizing the importance of matching not only the tool to the task, but fitting it to the user’s hand and body.

    Swain will be followed by veteran New England plantsman Wayne Mezitt, who will focus on the interplay between woody plants and perennials. Mezitt, whose family has bred many of best known rhododendron and azalea in use in the northeast today, will offer practical advice on flowering shrubs that push the beginning and end of the gardening season in New England.

    Joe KunkelThe day’s final speaker will be veteran nurseryman and MassHort executive director Joe Kunkel, who will speak on plant evaluations at Elm Bank. Commercial plant breeders from around the world send Elm Bank hundreds of cultivars for evaluation. Kunkel will highlight the plants that have stood out among their peers in the New England Trial Garden and the Bressingham Garden. He’ll talk about how homeowners can use regional trial gardens to narrow the list of attractive cultivars to a group that not only looks good in a pot at a garden center, but that will thrive in a back yard.

    The program runs from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The fee for those who register before August 25 is $95. The price rises $20 after that date. Lunch is included in the cost of the program.

    To sign up download the program and registration form or call 614-771-8431.
    Early registration ends August 25.

  • Saturday, June 13, 11 – 3 – Elm Bank Plant Sale

    From 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM this Saturday, Joe Kunkel, horticulturalist extraordinaire, and David Fiske, Mass Hort’s Gardens Curator, will be on hand to show our great selection of plants for sale and to answer any questions you may have.

    EchnaceaThe plant sale will be outside the Greenhouse area of our site. You’ll find a wide selection of annuals and perennials, many brand new to the area.  On hand are new varieties of petunias, Vinca, and many unusual species.  Most plants are in 4″ pots at $2 a piece with a special tray price of 15 for $20.  You can mix and match on full trays.

    VincaWe also have a wide selection of perennials in gallon containers at the great price of $8 or six in tray at $35.  You’ll find brand new varieties of Achillea and Echinacea that are being seen in the latest horticultural magazines.  We also have plenty of tried and true favorites as well.

    So if you are still looking for plants for your garden and you want beautiful specimens at a great price, come down to Elm Bank this Saturday for a rewarding experience.

    Joe Kunkel will be on hand to help you choose the right plant for your garden.  Joe is a dedicated Trustee of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society and oversaw the planting of the MHS Gardens on the Rose Kennedy Greenway.  For more information, log on to www.masshort.org.