Speakers-2015

GARDENS THAT WORK - FUNCTIONAL DESIGN

Jan 20TH 2015: Egan Davis 

Egan is very popular with our group and we always look forward to having him back.  His talks are interesting and entertaining.  Come early to get a seat as we usually run out when Egan comes!  He will cover the following:

Egan Davis is an award-winning gardener with a lifelong passion for horticulture. His diverse background includes garden design, landscape construction, botanical garden operations and greenhouse and nursery production. He managed collections at VanDusen Botanical Garden and was the foreman at Park & Tilford Gardens. Through his outreach activities such as television, radio, print and lectures at conferences and garden clubs, Egan has been a strong advocate for the horticulture industry. By serving on the board of directors of HortEd BC, Egan has been involved with developing industry standards and policies. He has been a leader in the industry for many years by participating in senior roles at BC Landscape and Nursery Association events.  Egan has taught horticulture in botanical garden, college and university settings and he brings the same passion and infectious enthusiasm for gardening to his teaching. When Egan is not teaching or working in the garden, he loves to explore the natural world by hiking and travelling to exotic ecological destinations.

INTRODUCING RAIN GARDENS

Feb 17TH 2015: Deborah Jones 

Deborah has a BA in Urban Studies and a Masters of Library Science, both from the University of California at Berkeley. From 1977 until 2010, she worked for Vancouver Public Library -- first as a reference librarian, and then as a cataloguer of science, technology and music materials. An avid gardener -- and one who once paid $3000 to have an unsightly housefront ditch filled in with culvert and lawn -- she gradually realized the irony of spending large sums to bury functional water features such as ditches and wetlands, only to turn around and spend even larger sums installing purely aesthetic artificial water features such as ponds, grottos, and waterfalls. Why not combine the functional and the aesthetic? She and her husband started modestly in 2002, by landscaping a ditch in front of their home in North Delta. Thirteen years and 19 rain gardens later, she is the Rain Gardens Coordinator for Cougar Creek Streamkeepers (North Delta / Surrey), and also volunteer advisor to The Nature Trust of BC on their Rain Garden Grant Program.

Drawing on 8 years' experience with creating and maintaining rain gardens, Deborah explains the "what, why and how" of this simple and effective use of landscaping to protect fish habitat, reduce ocean pollution, conserve water, enhance wildlife habitat and address drainage problems in an aesthetic and environmentally-friendly way. The colour slide presentation features numerous examples of rain gardens large and small, with a particular emphasis on school and community gardens in North Delta.

Deborah is an active member of the Cougar Creek Streamkeepers who are dedicated to restoring and maintaining the health of Cougar Creek.

PRUNING

Mar 17TH 2015: Paul Buikema

‘Pruning: Reap What You Sow’ will be a lively talk with tons of information for novice to advanced gardeners. Presented by award winning horticulturist Paul Buikema, with over 25 years of experience in the landscape industry in retail and wholesale nurseries, commercial fertilizer sales, landscaping, and arboriculture.  Paul will talk about the tools used for and the basics of pruning.  He will demonstrate and discuss pruning techniques including which methods will give what expected and repeated results.  He believes pruning can be done with a common sense ‘stop and think-for-a second’ approach rather than by following a textbook.  Paul welcomes audience participation and encourages discourse, questions, and ideas which help us all understand and hence treat our landscapes a little better.  He will bring a collection of his personal books on the topic for club members to glance at if they are looking to increase their own libraries.

Paul is an avid outdoorsman and has over 25 years of experience in the landscape and nursery sector locally in Metro Vancouver.

Starting in high school as a weekend and pocket money opportunity, the formative years were in the retail and wholesale nursery sector fostering a good knowledge of plant ID, their growth characteristics and care techniques. Paul spent 6 years as a sales person for a local wholesale company representing numerous different product lines but mainly focused on IPM and organic fertilizing products. Sales were mainly to garden centers, hydroponic shops and direct to farm growers in the Metro Vancouver and southern Vancouver Island regions.  Currently Paul enjoys giving back to the industry as the BC Retail captain for the Landscape Industry Certified program, volunteer facilitator at the BC Urban Forestry Symposium for the last few years, numerous committees at the BCLNA (Fundraising, Landscape Advisory Group, Certification and the Canwest Horticulture show volunteer), tour leader for arborist walks at Riverview Hospital and is a formative and existing member of the BC Arborist Apprentice steering committee. Spending 12 years running his own small landscape company has helped fine tune the skills and knowledge necessary to provide great client relations coupled with great landscape care and improvement. Paul now works as a field specialized salesperson at Specimen Trees Wholesale Nursery which maintains approximately 500 acres in the Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge area. Paul was invited to participate as a judge in the BC Landscapes of Excellence Awards program in August of 2014 and will likely return as head judge for 2015.

Paul has enjoyed delivering as a public speaker with groups of 5 to more than 350 attending, including most of the garden clubs in the lower mainland including Squamish and Mission. Paul regularly teaches to select groups on a handful of topics but focuses mainly on woody shrub and tree care.

Still unsure of what he wants to do for a living, Paul continues to foster and develop industry relationships, experience and a regular paycheck.

Accreditations: ISA Certified Arborist, Certified Tree Risk Assessor, Landscape Industry Certified (Retail), BC Arborist Apprentice Sign Off Authority

THE WORLD OF ORCHIDS

Apr 21ST 2015: Terry Groszeibl 

The World of Orchids will be a brief introduction to some of the more popular indoor and garden orchid genera. Empathises will be placed on cultural information, best practices and growing tips including many pictorial examples of each. 

Terry Groszeibl a professional horticulturalist, along with his wife Charlotte, also an accredited horticulturalist, own and operate Forestview Gardens. They grow several thousand tropical and temperate orchids, including some very rare and unusual varieties. They are dedicated to providing their customers with high quality, healthy orchids and friendly, personalized service.

Terry Groszeibl has been a professional grower for over 23 years.  In Ontario, fresh out of college, Terry took a position at Agriculture Canada where he worked as a research technician for 5 years. After that, he worked for a number of large scale commercial greenhouses as their head grower.  His love of orchids began when he worked with and researched them at Agriculture Canada and later grew 50,000 square feet of them in the greenhouse.Forestview Gardens was born in 1996 and was started by growing a vast array of perennials. It later morphed into exclusively orchids in 2005 when Terry and Charlotte moved to BC.  They became members and involved with both the Fraser Valley Orchid Society and the Vancouver Orchid Society.  Now they have a well-established Orchid business located in Agassiz and attend many talks and society show across the country.

Check out his web site at www.fvgardens.com

Glorious Organics: Growing Food in your Garden

May 19TH 2015: David Catzel CSA 

Gardening the farm and farming the garden: What farming has to learn from gardening, and how to incorporate food into your garden. The number of small scale farms (less than 5 acres) in the lower mainland, Fraser Valley, BC, and beyond are expanding at a surprising and exciting pace. Some of these farms are even within cities! With smaller farms seems to come more diverse forms of agriculture. These farms sometimes resemble large gardens with a mosaic of crops grown side by side, animals on the edges, and mixed orchards and berry patches. With examples of intercropping in the fields of Glorious Organics Co-op, we will discuss how these micro farms can grow more food in smaller spaces, and how you can incorporate some of these principals into your own garden.

David has almost 20 years growing experience using organic and ecological principals. He started farming in various community and school gardens while working with the Environmental Youth Alliance in Vancouver. He attended the Linnaea Ecological Gardening and Permaculture Design program in 1999, and received his Permaculture Teacher Training certificate in 2013. He has had the opportunity to experiment with seed growing/breeding, low till annual production, intercropping and companion planting while working with Glorious Organics Co-op in Aldergrove, BC. He has taught workshops in gardening, composting, permaculture, and seed saving to adults and children.

Check out his Co-op on Face Book

DWARF CONIFERS: the backbone of Rock Garden

Jun 16TH 2015: Gordon MacKay 

Dwarf Conifers: So many times someone will remark that they bought a 'wee' conifer and it turned out to be a giant.  Gordon's talk will focus on the gems that are suitable for a trough, rock, or crevice garden. We will also look at some appropriate plant companions for these verstaile, all year round hardy plants.   Gordon was inspired to discover the wonderful world of conifers by the Caledonian Pine Forest of his homeland.

After being encouraged and inspired by his father Angus, Gordon spent many weekends working on various landscape install and maintenance projects in the Glasgow area as a teenager. These years were full of great memories as he had the opportunity to work alongside his father and also his Uncle Hamish who was a great teacher. It was during this period that he knew that this was an industry that he really wanted to be involved in and after a pre-college year at one of Scotland's largest garden centres he enrolled at the renowned Threave School Gardening. It was here that Gordon found another horticultural mentor, Magnus Ramsay, a plantsman of the very highest calibre and for Gordon a true passion for ornamental plants was born.  Gordon was proud to achieve the top student award for plant identification and also be the first second generation student at Threave following in his father's footsteps. More training was in the cards, this time to specialize further into hardy nursery stock production in the three year diploma program at at Pershore College of Horticulture and both he and his Threave roommate Colin Johnstone quickly discovered how well their Threave training would serve them.

In 1994 Gordon was asked to come to Vancouver Island for a year to help set up and establish a specialty plant nursery. He enjoyed this experience so much that he stayed.  Alba Plants has been a personal project and Gordon is keen to develop and extend the range of plants, raised with no harmful pesticides. He is also part of the therapeutic horticulture team at Providence Farm and recently took up a position as Horticulture Instructor at Camosun College.

Gordon presents to gardening events on a variety of subjects. A new area of interest is arboriculture, a true passion and area of growing professional development.

Check out his web site:  http://www.albaplants.com/.  Check out his blog: http://albaplants.blogspot.ca/

FALL INTO WINTER: Container Design

Sept 15TH 2015: Robyn Leake 

Robyn has been a great supporter of our club.  At our last plant sale, she donated a huge planter for our raffle.  She has spoken at many events including the local Seedy Sat.

ALL ABOUT HYDRANGEAS

Oct 20TH 2015: Barry Roberts 

Incorrigibly obsessive about hydrangeas, Barry Roberts, Advanced Master Gardener, Past President of the Master Gardeners Association of BC, former governor of VanDusen Botanical Gardens, former UBC Friend of the Garden, former council member of Darts Hill Garden Park, current member of the South Surrey Garden Club and Hardy Plant Group.  A member of the RHS, UK, for over 30 years.

There is more to hydrangeas than the showy mopheads! Barry will take you through the extensive family of hydrangeas, the notable species and those ‘must-have’ cultivars. Cultivation, pruning and propagation techniques will be explained and handouts will be provided. Barry’s 1.5-acre garden is located in South Surrey where he is growing his collection of over 100 hydrangeas. Visit his website: www.heritagehydrangeas.com.  The Heritage Hydrangeas is the largest collection of hydrangea species in Canada.  Location in South Surrey  BC, his collection continues to grow.

Over the years Barry has spoken at many clubs including Abbotsford Garden Club, Mission Garden Club, Dunbar Garden Club, Quadra Island Garden Club, West Vancouver Garden Club, Richmond Garden Club, Deep Cove Garden Club, South Burnaby Garden Club, West Coast Garden Clubs, plus others.

TOUR OF FLORIADE 2012

Nov 17TH 2015: Angelika Hedley 

Angelika will share with us her photos of the beautiful gardens at the Floriade 2012.  This was a World Horticulture Exposition, which only occurs in the Netherlands, once every 10 years.  http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2012/apr/11/floriade-2012-world-horticulture-festival-pictures

Angelika Hedley taught in the public school system (Winnipeg, Victoria, Delta) for 42 years, teaching both regular classes and special education (Learning Assistance and Learning Disabilities programs) from kindergarten to grade 12. She received a Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001.

 Gardening is her life-long recreational passion. She got hooked on the amazing world of plants when her father stuck her discarded pretend riding crop into the border bed and it grew into a 2-story willow in a few years! While living in Victoria, she was active in the Victoria Horticultural Society as secretary and newsletter editor in the mid-1980s. She has been with our club off and on since moving to Ladner in 1990. Currently she edits the newsletter and creates and presents gardening programs.

 In her spare time, she sews, attends concerts, and is an avid reader on an eclectic range of topics.