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Greetings! I’ve finally got the calendar posted on Eastern Shore Gardener. Click here to see it. There are some great events coming up in the next few months. Chestertown Garden Club’s annual May Mart is scheduled for Friday, May 4, and the Rock Hall Garden Club is having a tour of private gardens on May 19.

I’ve included a variety of events that are on the Western Shore, but still close by. April 19 to 21 (Thursday to Saturday) the American Daffodil Society will be holding its national convention and a flower show in Towsend. The list also contains several seminars and lectures, plus bonsai and Ikebana events at the National Arboretum. There also are plant sales at Adkins Arboretum, the University of Delaware Botanic Garden in Newark, and at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

I’ll continue to look for more events to add, but I hope you will all peruse the list, and plan to attend an event or two. NEW EVENTS. If you know of any lectures, plant sales, or other events that would interest Eastern Shore Gardeners, I would like to know about them! Please send details to me at hackberrypoint@gmail.com so I can add them to the calendar.

Attention proofreaders: This is obviously not my specialty! I had to choose between making it perfect and making it available. Please let me know if you find anything egregious or if any of the links don’t work.

I’ve been spending a bit of quality time out in the garden this winter—primarily weeding and cutting things back, but also enjoying plants in their winter garb. One benefit of this strange non-winter we are having is that bulbs are already showing their pretty faces. I have winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis) and common snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) in bloom already, and my hellebores (Helleborus x hybridus) are not far behind.

Eranthis12

Above: Winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis)

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I’ve started pulling together the 2012 calendar and promise to get that up and running soon with all new events. In the meantime, I wanted to call attention to three upcoming seminars of interest to Eastern Shore gardeners.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

Perennialy Inspired: Perennial Plant Association/Horticultural Society of Maryland Seminar

Speakers include David Culp, Carol Long, Allen Bush.

When: Saturday, February 25, 2012; 8:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

Where: Sheppard-Pratt Conference Center, 6501 N. Charles Street, Towson, Maryland
Cost: $89 for members ($99 after February 3); $99 for non-members ($109 after February 3). Lunch and snacks are included.

The Perennial Plant Association and the Horticultural Society of Maryland have a great speaker line-up for this all-day seminar. Speakers include David Culp of Sunny Border Nurseries; Carol Long from Winterthur; Allen Bush of Jelitto Perennial Seeds; Dan Benarcik of Chanticleer; and landscape architect Thomas Ranier, who is one of my favorite bloggers.  For full details on the program, see PPA/MSH Seminar.

 

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012

Half-Day Seminar: Native Plants: Design and Maintenance

Tracy DeSabito-Aust, author of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden and The Well-Designed Mixed Border

When: Saturday March 31, 2012, 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; (Registration opens at 8:30 a.m.)

Where: Anne Arundel Community College, 101 College Parkway, Center for Applied Learning and Technology, CALT Building, Arnold, MD 21012.

Cost: $60.00. A light breakfast is included. Book signing after the seminar.

This half-day seminar on Maryland native plants, design, and maintenance is sponsored by Unity Gardens, an organization dedicated to “empower local groups to build leadership and partnership through the creation of neighborhood greening projects that enhance the quality of life throughout Anne Arundel County.” The seminar is approved as advanced training for Maryland Master Gardeners. For more information, see Native Plants.

 

 

SATURDAY, APRIL 21

Outdoor Living Extravaganza: A Retreat and Seminar with Proven Winners

When: Saturday, April 21, 2012; 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Where: Airlie Conference Center, 6809 Airlie Road, Warrenton, Virginia 20187

Cost: $80.00. Includes a catered luncheon and snacks.

This day-long seminar is organized by people who bring us Proven Winners brand plants and focuses on using color and getting the most out of the garden. Speakers include Proven Winners Program Manager Kerry Meyer; garden designer and speaker Kerry Mendez; Walter’s Gardens Marketing Manager Susan Martin; and gardening expert and TV host Joe Lamp’l. Participants will receive a gift bag and the chance to win a wide variety of prizes. To register, go to provenwinners or call 877-865-5818.

I don’t normally drag my camera out into the garden, but I was weeding a few days ago (click here if you missed my recent thoughts on the importance of this task in winter) and noticed a ground cover that was looking quite pretty. Since handsome ground covers in January are worth taking a second look at, I wanted to share some pictures. This is especially true since the plant I’m highlighting today is growing in partial shade and less-than-ideal soil conditions.

Hypericum-Brigadoon

The plant that caught my eye is ‘Brigadoon’ Aaron’s beard (Hypericum calycinum ‘Brigadoon’). I have to say I haven’t particularly noticed its yellow, five-petaled flowers, which appear in late spring, but the golden yellow new growth is certainly eye-catching this January. (Plants are semi-evergreen, so they are primarily valued for late summer to fall foliage value; it seems that the weather this year makes January an extension of fall!) Since my clump isn’t growing in full sun, it’s a mix of yellow foliage mixed with older bronzy green stems.

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First the talk: I am going to be giving a talk at the Chestertown Garden Club January meeting, and it is open to the public. Here are the details

When: 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

Where: Church hall of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 101 North Cross Street, Chestertown, MD 21620

Topic: Befriending the Bay: Creating Bay-Friendly Gardens and Landscapes.  Join local gardener and garden expert Barbara Ellis for a practical look at what gardeners can do to benefit the bay. Learn how principals like reducing lawn and runoff as well as attracting wildlife can help you create beautiful, unique gardens and landscapes that also help the Bay.

Hope to see some of you there! I’ll have books and a few tools available for purchase.

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My friend, Nancy Ondra, has a great new book, Tried and True Perennials, and I wanted to make a quick pre-Christmas post about it. It may be a perfect gift for someone on your list.  (I got it for myself!)

image

Anyway, if I’m completely on board with any plant that Nancy recommends, and this book features 20 of the best performers from her garden. I grow a number of them already, although undoubtedly not as well as she does, and the rest just jumped to the top of my list of plants to add to the garden. I should mention that Nancy gardens near Quakertown, Pennsylvania, so her recommendations are all suitable for our region.

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I spent an hour or so cleaning up the garden this afternoon. As I was pulling up the first of the winter weeds and cutting back chrysanthemums, I heaved all the debris onto an ordinary green tarp that I have used again and again this year. Since it has become one of my favorite tools this year, I thought I should write a few words about it.

Tarp

My tarp is nothing special.  The one I use is about 6 feet by 8 feet. It is big enough to collect a fair amount of garden debris, but not so large that it gets heavy or cumbersome to pull along the ground, which is the method I use for transporting whatever I’ve collected to the compost pile.

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