Boston Flora

Tag: Sam Hoadley

  • Wednesday, March 5, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm Eastern – Vernonia for Every Garden, Online

    The genus Vernonia, commonly known as ironweed, is an often-overlooked aster relative that has tremendous horticultural potential. Vernonia ranges from compact and tidy plants to towering behemoths topping out at over 13 feet in height. Sam Hoadley, Mt. Cuba’s manager of horticultural research, will be your guide through the trials, sharing how Vernonia is evaluated to determine horticultural value and performance, disease resistance, and pollinator preference. Sam Hoadley is the Manager of Horticultural Research at Mt. Cuba Center where he evaluates native plant species, old and new cultivars, and hybrids in the Trial Garden. He earned his degree in Sustainable Landscape Horticulture from the University of Vermont. Some of his favorite native plants include Amsonia, Baptisia, Clematis, and Silphium.

    This program takes place online Wednesday, March 5, 2025. $25. Register at https://mtcubacenter.org/event/vernonia-for-every-garden-online/

  • Thursday, October 27, 8:30 am – 4:30 pm – 2022 Season’s End Summit, Live and Online

    Our goal as both professionals and home gardeners is to create habitat for all. In order to achieve this, we must design with an ecological sensibility, implement with an ecological sensibility and manage our landscape with that same ecological sensibility. Over time all landscapes evolve and we try to set a path for the design to follow, to create the palette we envision, but it could also take a surprising and scenic turn depending on plant/animal/insect/human interactions. The way we care for our designs can have a pretty significant impact on that design and considerations such as light, noise, and carbon emissions should be part of our plans. Our goal is to create habitat, a functioning ecosystem for all. So, are we getting it right?

    This Ecological Landscape Alliance fall conference on October 27 at New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill has engaged five professionals to tell their stories of landscape interaction of plants, the environment, the management and the creatures that rely on them (including humans). Two Landscape Architects will talk about projects over time – what surprises they found, whether maintenance or management impacted their design and what accommodations they felt were necessary. We also have speakers who will address plant selection, the function of native, nativar and non-native plants in the landscape and importance of the plant selection on pollinator and insect/plant interactions. Does our plant selection affect the wildlife that uses it and do certain plant groups create greater impact. All of these stories also rely on the way that we manage and its implications on the landscape. Learn about new directions in management and the difference they can make to your design.

    Attend Season’s End in person and get the value of visiting New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill and its acres of varied landscapes. Or attend virtually from anywhere in the country and get the benefit of hearing these great stories from experienced professionals.

    Sam Hoadley will present Knockout Natives. Sam is the Manager of Horticultural Research at Mt. Cuba Center where he evaluates native plant species, old and new cultivars, and hybrids in the Trial Garden. Sam earned his degree in Sustainable Landscape Horticulture from the University of Vermont.

    Next comes Fostering Pollinator Populations: New Ideas and Other Ecological Perspectives with Pawel Pieluszynski. He specializes in ecological horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park with a keen interest in entomology and native plant communities. He is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in Biology at CUNY College of Staten Island.  The talk is followed by Mark Richardson and Robert Graham on Making the Move to Green Equipment.

    Finally, Toby Wolf speaks on Designing for Change at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Toby Wolf is the owner of Wolf Landscape Architecture, whose designs connect people with the natural world. He has developed master plans, site designs, and planting designs for Wellesley College, the Native Plant Trust, Cornell Botanic Gardens, Colby College, Mount Auburn Cemetery, and homeowners throughout the Boston area. Mr. Wolf is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University. He has taught at Cornell, RISD, and SUNY ESF and has served as President and board member of the Ecological Landscape Alliance and the Horticulture Committee of the Friends of the Public Garden.

    $149 for nonmembers of ELA, for either virtual or live attendance. Register at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/ela-summit-2022/

  • Sunday, November 14, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm – 7th Annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium

    The 7th Annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium, Growing Resilience: The Climate Crisis, Our Gardens and Communities will be held at Berkshire Botanical Garden on November 14 from 10 – 5. BBG members $95, Nonmembers $115, and Students $65. Register at https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/7th-annual-rooted-place-ecological-gardening-symposium

    Speakers and topics are detailed below:

    How A Place-Based Garden Culture of Care Strengthens Places and Their People: This program will explore the philosophy of the Cultivating Place podcast that gardens/gardeners are powerful spaces and agents for potentially positive change in our world, helping to address challenges as wide ranging as climate change, resource use, habitat and biodiversity loss, cultural polarization/marginalization, and individual and communal health and being, as exemplified by the important guests on  Jennifer Jewell’s podcasts and the innovative place-based gardens that celebrate specifically western landscapes in the book Under Western Skies. Jennifer Jewell is the host of the national, award-winning weekly public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden. She is the author of award-winning The Earth in Her Hands, 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants (Timber Press 2020), and Under Western Skies, Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast (Timber Press 2021). Her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersections between our places, our cultures, and our gardens. 

    Lessons in Built Ecology Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85 acre, organic park in the middle of New York City, was created with ecology in mind. The park’s award-winning piers include top-notch recreation and entertainment — from opera to outdoor films, all of it beautifully designed. But the piers also contain native woodlands, freshwater wetlands, salt marshes, and numerous meadows. These areas echo native ecosystems and are managed with an emphasis on wildlife habitat. This talk will encompass the many ecological strategies employed by the park’s designers, as well as the management techniques park staff have developed to cultivate biodiversity. Topics will include pragmatic strategies for encouraging ecologically beneficial landscapes. 

    Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist. She is Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park where she oversees 85 acres of diverse parkland. These meadows, forests, salt marshes and freshwater wetlands are managed with the dual purposes of cultivating, beautifying and encouraging biodiversity, all within the largest city in the country. In her imaginary free time, Rebecca lectures, writes, and designs the occasional garden. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, the Landscape Institute, and the Ecological Landscape Alliance. 

    Sam Hoadley is the Horticultural Research Manager at Mt. Cuba Center. His work includes evaluating native plant species, old and new cultivars, as well as hybrids in Mt. Cuba’s Trial Garden. Using data collected and analyzed over a three-year period, a research report is published outlining top-performing plants for the Mid-Atlantic region. This information is designed to inform consumers and home gardeners as well as professionals in the horticultural and nursery industries about the ecological benefits and attributes of the native plants in our trials. His presentation will focus on knockout native species and cultivars researched at the Mt Cuba Center. Sam received a degree in Sustainable Landscape Horticulture from the University of Vermont.

    Pete Grima is a Service Forester with the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation covering northern Berkshire County, where he helps landowners make informed decisions about their forests.  He is also an avid botanist responsible for many new and novel botanical discoveries in the Berkshires, and he is a co-author of the recently published Vascular Flora of Franklin County, Massachusetts. Using a recent landowner interaction from his Service Forestry work as a case study, Pete’s presentation will describe the process of envisioning a future forest to be planted in an old field, with a mind towards carbon storage and climate resilience.