The Massachusetts Horticultural Society has put together a full day of programs as part of the Paragon Group’s Boston Flower & Garden Show, opening March 24 and running through March 28 at the Seaport World Trade Center. On Thursday, March 25, beginning at 11:30, Art Scarpa opens the morning with ‘The Care and Feeding of Houseplants’. Whether we live in a grand house or a one-bedroom apartment, houseplants are an essential part of New England because six months out of the year there’s nothing growing and green outside. This program will deal with houseplant basics: selection, care and maintenance. You will come away with your thumb considerably greener.
At 12:30, MassHort has assembled on stage a virtual encyclopedia of gardening knowledge. Roger Swain, Paul Miskovsky and Kerry Ann Mendez invite everyone to bring their best questions on any topic related to gardening. Swain (pictured below) is the well-know host of PBS’ ‘The Victory Garden’ (he will also speak on the subject of tools on Saturday), who brings a dollop of humor to his broad knowledge of all things botanical. Miskovsky is considered one of the region’s best landscapers. He has installed two gardens on the exhibit floor; one, a 1,080 square foot garden (Falmouth-based Miskovsky Landscaping) and a second one for Heritage Museum and Gardens. Paul creates inspiring gardens for his public and private clients, but he can also tell you how to properly plant a rhododendron. Mendez is a ‘passionate perennialist’, an exceptional gardening speaker and the proprietor of ‘Perennially Yours’ in upstate New York.
At 1:30, Rita Wollmering offers ‘Ready, Set, Grow – Preparing for a Successful Vegetable Garden’. She’ll take you through the practical steps that lead to a more successful vegetable garden. With planning, preparation and smart planting, gardeners can see an increase in both the health and yield of their plots.
At 2:30, Betty Sanders talks on ‘The Green, Organic and Affordable Lawn’. The level of hype and dubious information about ‘organics’ has gotten to a state where someone with a wide body of knowledge, no axe to grind and nothing to sell is needed to sort it all out and answer all questions in a way that listeners understand their options.
At 3:30 p.m., Cathy Felton will talk on ‘Editing the Mature Garden’. What do you do with a yard full of overgrown shrubs and perennials with dead centers? It may be the house you’ve lived in for 40 years or it may be the one you just purchased. Either way, bringing a landscape back to a manageable shape doesn’t always need to be a job for a contractor – or pointlessly expensive. The program will show how incremental steps can undo decades of neglect.
At 5 p.m., Sally Muspratt offers ‘Small is Beautiful: Do-it-Yourself City Landscaping’. Not everyone has five acres, not everyone can hire a designer. The house in the city with 50 feet of street frontage can have just as much appeal as an estate. But where do you begin when you’re starting with some old boxwood and scraggly grass? This talk will take homeowners on a step-by-step process toward achieving a great landscape in a small space, and is especially appropriate for those of us located in the City of Boston.
