Seminars

Exhibitors
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2013 Seminars

Robert Buettner

1. In business since 1960 with shop located in East Hartford, CT
2. CT Florist of the year 2010
3. Instructor of Floral Design MCC
4. Member of Board of Directors CT Florist Assoc.
5. Member of FTD
6. Member of “Flowers for Kids” program.
7. Active at the Hole in the Wall Camp
8. Scuba diver & long distance bicycle rider.
   

Karen Bussolini

Karen Bussolini is a widely published garden photographer, writer, speaker and teacher, a NOFA - Accredited Organic Land Care Professional and an eco-friendly garden coach. She trained as a painter and had a career as an architectural photographer before turning all her attention to gardens. When photographing, she sees the world through the eyes of a gardener and painter. Although she travels far and wide, her roots are sunk deeply into the soil of a deer-infested mountainside in South Kent, Connecticut. The Naturescaping Workbook, her sixth book as photographer, was published by Timber Press. 

Dr. Rich Cowles

Rich Cowles obtained his degrees in entomology from Cornell and Michigan State Universities.  He worked four years on ornamentals and turf pests at the University of California, Riverside, before being hired by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station.  Since 1994 Dr. Cowles has been working at the Station’s Valley Laboratory, Windsor, on pests as diverse as hemlock woolly adelgids and bed bugs. 

 Dr. Cowles will be talking about invasive insects that affect our landscape or our enjoyment of the outside.  Insects of interest include the hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, spotted wing drosophila, and the brown marmorated stink bug.  You will learn where they originated, their life cycle, and ways in which you may protect your hemlocks, ash trees and fruits from these pests.

Phil Costello

Phil is the lighting designer and principle of Illumascape Lighting, LLC.  He has designed and installed Architectural and Landscape Lighting in many communities in Southern New England and Eastern New York.  His Philosophy is to develop for the client a lighting design that will meet the needs of the owner and create a nightime environment that provides comfort and enjoyment, safety and security.  Having studied Forestry and Landscape Design coupled with completion of the master's gardeners program and thirty plus years in the landscape industry Phil knows what it takes to produce a lighting design and installation that truly compliments a home and property.

Tammy Cressotti

Mimi's Hilltop Apiary started in 2010 in Granville, Massachusetts. Why did you get into beekeeping people asked? I was leaving the corporate world behind to pursue a different avenue with less travel and stress. I didn't know anything about beekeeping at the beginning, but I watched many bee related documentaries and I knew how important it was to keep the honeybee around. Being that my husband and I have a 15 acre old Apple Orchard that we are trying to re-establish, it seemed like a good pairing to our goals for our homestead. We already mastered raising backyard chickens and we were ready for a bigger challenge. I worked hard at beekeeping being very cautious at first and slowly built up my skills. I researched how many benefits that the bee products give to all of us through books and the internet. I belong to the Hampden County Beekeepers club, and they helped open my eyes to what a great hobby I was embarking on. Beekeeping is very hard and very expensive to get going, I soon found out. I started to experiment with making Beeswax and Honey products. I thought if I could sell a few products to the local people it would help me to offset the costs of my beekeeping. I soon became addicted! With every new product came more ideas and challenges. I don't always have success, but when I get people coming back to me and tell me that my products made such a profound difference to their skin ailments, it makes me feel validated and great that I made a difference in such a positive way.

Lelaneia Dubay

I am a creative artist that initially specialized in landscape painting and then came into landscape design by creating a garden for my mother. Landscape design and painting are two of the most closely linked arts. I arrived at landscape design so as to create beautiful spaces to paint.

My landscape design career has been spent between the Connecticut coastline and the Connecticut River Valley. Currently, I design landscapes for customers throughout all of Connecticut, Western Massachusetts, and the entirety of Southern New England.  I am a master gardener and member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.

Over the past decade I have been privileged to work on many large estates, including a Philip Johnson designed estate in Madison, Connecticut. This past year I created a rain garden for Secretary of State, Denise Merrill, as well as a native planting project at Bradley Airport.

I have created a Landscape Designers Challenge in Hartford, bringing new front landscapes to inner city neighborhoods.  I am, this year, creating a West End garden tour, to support beautification projects in the West End of Hartford.

I have enjoyed designing solutions for urban settings, including several New York City brownstone garden spaces as well as a unique native plants garden for Incord, a forward-thinking Colchester, Connecticut company.  I believe in eco-responsibility by using native plants in my designs to increase our biodiversity, as well as on-site water responsibility.

I make my home in Central Connecticut in the beautiful Historic West End of Hartford and have a growing client list, with many repeat client projects. Some projects have been multi-year efforts in order to work within client budgets and/or the large scope of a property.  It is always rewarding to see these larger projects installed, completely transforming homes and properties.

My goal as a landscape designer is to create beautiful outdoor sanctuaries that promote a peaceful retreat from the busy world, while allowing the homeowner to expand their interior space into the outdoors and fulfill their dreams.

Jerry Fritz

Jerry Fritz is president of Jerry Fritz Garden Design, Inc. and Linden Hill Gardens, located in Ottsville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Since founding his garden design company 23 years ago, Jerry has focused on satisfying his clients’ craving for original and innovative concepts and plant material.

Jerry holds a BS in Ornamental Horticulture from Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He is a member of numerous professional organizations, including the Perennial Plant Association, the Hardy Plant Society, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, The New York Botanical Garden, the Royal Horticultural Society, and the American Nursery and Landscape Association. Jerry has provided garden features on the radio and has been a featured guest on Martha Stewart Living.

Today, Jerry and his team of garden professionals are based at Linden Hill, a farmstead that encompasses more than 20 acres. The site is home to greenhouses, barns, a pond and lovely display gardens. Currently, Plant Events are held on selected weekends throughout the season. Within the next few years, Jerry is planning to expand Linden Hill Gardens into a full service gardeners’ destination point. The bank barn, which is being meticulously renovated, will function as the retail hub, housing a garden gift store, flower shop, café and lecture room.

Len Giddix

Len Giddix has been gardening for over 50 years.  You would think that would be sufficient time to make every mistake in the gardening catalog and learn from them.  Evidently, it is not, because Len is still learning new gardening secrets every year, and he loves to share his experiences and secrets.

Len has been co-host of WTIC’s Garden Talk , Saturday’s 12 noon ‘til 2pm for 12 years.  He is a graduate of Penn State University’s School of Agriculture and holds a full-time position in the sales department of Prides Corner Farms, a wholesale grower of nursery stock in Lebanon, CT.  

He still finds plenty of time to garden, to learn new tricks and to become utterly astonished by nature’s power and complexities.

Gordon Hayward

The idea that your house is the center of your garden is not just an aesthetic notion but also a practical tool. In this one-hour lecture illustrated by 80 pairs of slides, Hayward shows how your house can help you design front, side and back gardens as well as gardens between buildings, gardens in an ell or courtyard, or gardens centered around outbuildings. Your house, with its doors, windows, materials, style, dimensions and proportions, offers no end of clues to help you develop good gardens around it. Doors give rise to paths, terraces and sight-lines; windows frame views of those paths and gardens. Initial design ideas from the house then join up with those generated by outbuildings and other built structures – an existing terrace or deck, a gazebo or pergola, a garage, even driveway edges – to help you create a coherent landscape plan that seamlessly links house to garden.

This lecture comes out of Hayward’s fifth book, YOUR HOUSE YOUR GARDEN, published by WW Norton, Spring, 2003. The American Horticultural Society named this one of the top five garden books for 2004

* Fine Painting as Inspiration for Garden Design *, * Taking a Fresh Look at Your Garden*, * A lecture by Gordon Hayward*

This lively one hour lecture comes out of Gordon Hayward’s new book ART AND THE GARDENER. It explores the visual language shared by painters and garden designers. By juxtaposing a painting and a garden image on the screen simultaneously, Hayward explores the many levels of similarity between how the painter and garden designer compose their images. Both use elements of composition to construct their images: visual itinerary, defining depth, creating foreground/background, light and shadow, focal points, pleasing contrast, framing, contrasting textures and forms, balance, the roles of line and color as well as positive and negative space. By juxtaposing works by such painters as VanGogh, Degas, Renoir, Thomas Cole, Childe Hassam and many others with gardens from across America and England, Hayward provides you with new ways to look at your garden, and art.

Hayward first gave this lecture for the Art in Bloom program at The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1995 and has been presenting it in art museums, botanic gardens and garden clubs nationwide ever since.

Baroness Maureen Haseley - Jones a.k.a. The English Lady

Maureen Haseley-Jones, aka The English Lady, is a member of a family of renowned horticultural artisans, whose landscaping heritage dates back to the seventeenth century. She is one of the founders, together with her son Ian, of the well-known and established The English Lady Landscape and Home company located in Essex, CT. Maureen and Ian are much sought after designers and garden experts. Her “cheeky, self-effacing style” as the “garden guru” on WRCH Lite 100.5 FM radio has earned her a wide fan base over the last ten years. 

Maureen lectures throughout Connecticut on a broad range of landscape design and environmentally holistic related topics.  She writes provocative columns for newspapers and magazines and hopes to have her book detailing her adventurous life in and out of the garden published next year. Home Living Connecticut Magazine referred to Maureen as “one of Connecticut’s best known landscape designers and radio personalities.”

Beginning in 1648 Maureen’s family were tenants at Powys Castle in Wales and worked on the landscape for William Herbert 1st Marquess of Powys and thereafter for the Herbert family into the early nineteen hundreds.  Refining their craft on all areas of the castle landscape including the terrace gardens, Orangery terrace, Water garden and formal gardens. The gardens at Powys are considered by many landscape experts to be the best example of eighteenth century gardens in Britain today.  Maureen learned her design skills from her mother and grandmother and honed her construction skills while working in the family business in the U.K. Her formal horticultural training was at the world-renowned Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in Surrey. The New York Times said of her “one of life’s unexpected experiences was discussing manure with a baroness.”

Maureen has an honors degree from the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was on the English Stage for two years.  She also qualified to race on a Formula One team in Europe.  Maureen came to the United States as a stewardess on TWA Airlines and later became a production consultant on the CBS soap opera “Guiding Light” in New York City.  Connecticut Magazine found Maureen “anything but tweedy.”

Baroness Maureen Haseley-Jones is partnered son Ian J. Sveilich, an inheritor of the family’s talents and renowned legacy.  Under their auspices over the past twenty years, the Company grew and together this dynamic team has designed inspiring indoor rooms and breathtaking landscapes large and smallthroughout the northeast.

They believe that everyone deserves a wonderful eco-conscious environment in which to live both indoors and out, respecting all budgets, enjoying the process as well as the finished product.  As Ian says to clients “it is the feeling you get that truly matters.”  

Read more about Baroness Maureen

Helen O'Donnell

Helen O'Donnell Gardening is Helen O'Donnell's passion and profession. From the age of fifteen, Helen has been toiling out in the soil- working as an organic vegetable farmer, for a landscaping company, and eventually owning her own garden design and maintenance business. Over the past few years, Helen has traveled to England to live and volunteer in English gardens including Hidcote Manor and Great Dixter. In both volunteer placements, she worked with the garden teams, improving her skills and learning new techniques in pruning, starting seeds, planting and design. She currently works one day a week for the well known garden designer and writer, Gordon Hayward, helping him and his wife Mary with maintenance and annual planting design in their beautiful four acre garden. Helen also works as a consultant, and she designs, installs and maintains gardens for private clients. She specializes in pruning, garden renovation, and annual plant design. She is deeply interested in plant material and is constantly learning new plants and cultivars. She writes about plants and gardening for the magazine, Wilder Quarterly, as well as for her blog, Anemone Times (anemonetimes.blogspot.com). In addition she owns a printmaking studio, Twin Vixen Press, in Brattleboro, Vermont, and teaches printmaking at The Putney School in Putney, Vermont. She lives in Putney on a small farm with her husband Noah.

MJ McCabe

M J McCabe has been designing residential landscapes for over 20 years. After completing the Landscape Design Certification program at The New York Botanical Garden, she traveled extensively to study garden design in England, Ireland and Japan. A convergence of these styles is reflected in her elegant and enduring gardens set primarily along the CT shoreline. An ongoing collaboration with skilled contractors, masons and carpenters produces gardens that truly complement and enhance the home  residence. Her designs always include a full range of bulbs that provide a multitude of color, fragrance and garden grandeur extending from February into  late Summer.  

Janet Lennox Moyer

Janet Lennox Moyer, IALD, recipient of many design awards has judged lighting competitions, been published extensively and taught all over the world. Her practice has included interior, commercial, and residential lighting, but her emphasis shifted to landscape lighting in 1983.  Jan wrote the internationally acclaimed The Landscape Lighting Book. Originally published in 1992 with the second edition released by John Wiley in March 2005, the third edition integrates the disruptive technology LED how it is changing lighting and what to look for in the future scheduled to be released in 2013.  Jan met George Gruel, graphic designer and photographer, during the last month of the book revision effort in 2004. They have collaborated on a series of books of his photos of her work. The first called She Paints with Light covers the recent years of 2004 to 2008.  Through The Landscape Lighting Resource, an educational 501(c)(3) Public Charity holds two 5-day, 5-night Landscape Lighting Institute intensive courses. Each day includes morning lectures, afternoon workshop sessions, and evening mockups. Jan is committed to sharing her knowledge and striving to raise the bar for the landscape lighting industry, as she would love everyone to be able to enjoy our planets’ garden spaces after dark. In 2010 Jan began work to create a non-profit entity to preserve and to disseminate information about landscape lighting. New York State approved the TLLR on Sept 15, 2010 and the IRS made it a 501(c)(3) Public Charity in the spring of 2011. Still in it’s infancy, more information will become available over time on the foundation website – www.TLLR.org.

Dawn Pettinelli

Dawn Pettinelli is an Extension Instructor in the Department of Plant Science at the University of Connecticut. She manages the UConn Home and Garden Education Center and the UConn Soil Nutrient Analysis Laboratory. Both facilities provide information, testing and advice to homeowners and commercial clientele. Dawn was the Master Gardener Coordinator for Worcester County Cooperative Extension in Massachusetts. A lifelong gardener, Dawn was also a horticulturist at Old Sturbridge Village. Since 1987 she has been writing gardening columns for local newspapers and is involved in adult and youth education efforts focusing primarily on soil quality and fertility. She has appeared on the Martha Stewart Show, the History Channel, Fox News and on local CT television stations. Her articles have been published in Radius and Connecticut Gardener magazines, and recently she began the Master Composter Program in CT.

Peter Picone

Peter Picone, lifetime Connecticut native, has been working as a wildlife biologist for over 25 years and will share his insights on creating seasonal habitat for songbirds using native plants.

Have you ever wondered where the Northern Cardinal or the Downy Woodpecker rests at night ? What does the American Goldfinch really eat in the wild: does it only eat thistle from a feeder? What do songbirds like the Scarlet Tanager or Wood thrush feed on in the fall when the frost hits and there are no more insects to eat? What variety of foods does the Wild Turkey feed on in your neighborhood? Is the Wild Turkey dependent on food from your feeder? In the dead of the winter, what do our resident songbirds feed on ? What plants provide winter food sources at a time of food scarcity? What kinds of trees do Mourning Doves select for nesting in early spring? When you choose a plant for your property are you considering its “ ecological function” and how it enhances wildlife habitat?

Come to Mr. Picone’s lecture and you will learn that you can make a difference for wildlife in your surroundings by the plants you choose to plant and their arrangement.

Colleen Plimpton

Colleen Plimpton spent 30 years in her first career as a clinical social worker with the chronically mentally ill. Her second career is that of professional garden communicator. Trained at the New York Botanical Garden, she has tended her sloping Connecticut acre for 20 years. Colleen has appeared on numerous TV and radio programs including CBS, ABC, Good Morning America and PBS; she pens a prize-winning newspaper column for Hearst Media Group; coaches gardening; has taught at the New York Botanical Garden; lectures widely; and writes for publications such as GreenPrints, Connecticut Gardener, and Toastmaster. Colleen’s multi-honored garden memoir, Mentors in the Garden of Life was a Finalist for the 2011 Connecticut Book of the Year in the Memoir category. Her new book, Growing a Movement: How a Small Group of Determined Women Changed Horticultural History will be available in 2013. 

Colleen looks upon each day as an opportunity to learn more about the wonderful world of nature.  She and her husband Jerry Shike raised 3 children, who now reside in Chicago, New York City, and Florida.

For more information, visit her website, www.colleenplimpton.com.  Contact Colleen at colleenplimpton@yahoo.com 

Jim & Basia

Emerald Ash Borer in Your Backyard Ecosystem?  

Bioenergy integration methods offer viable, sustainable solutions for transforming invasive insect/disease problems.  Learn practical techniques for transforming your backyard ecosystem from fragmentation (that invites the Emerald Ash Borer) into  dynamic balance without products or chemicals. Leading-edge research results will be shown. Hands-on exercises provide insightful experiences and open intuitive connections with Nature’s intelligence. Help yourself with wise methods based on the principle of "Live and Let Live."

Basia Alexander, The Chief Listener, is a catalyst for positive change and a leader in the new field of Conscious Co-Creativity. As an expert Nature communicator, Basia leads workshops and produces innovative curriculum. She is also an educator at the Omega Institute. Basia has led and supported environmental outreach efforts and writes on topics of health, personal transformation, creativity, and spirituality. As co-founder of the Institute for Cooperative BioBalance, she directs its educational and philanthropic initiatives. www.TreeWhispering.com .

Jim Conroy, Ph.D., The Tree Whisperer®, earned his doctorate in Plant Pathology from Purdue University and spent 25 years as an executive in top ag-chem companies. Now, he is an authority on Nature-based communication and a global expert who holistically heals stressed trees, plants, and ecosystems with his own bioenergy-healing approach. As creator of Tree Whispering®–a holistic, hands-on, earth-friendly, no-product, and sustainable solution–he shows people how to restore tree and plant health by healing internal functionality.

Teaching globally, Dr. Jim is also on faculty at Omega Institute. As co-founder of the Institute for Cooperative BioBalance, he is dedicated to bringing the principles and practices of co-existence with all of Nature’s Beings into people’s daily lives. www.TheTreeWhisperer.com , www.CooperativeBioBalance.org, and www.StrengthenForests.com.

Julie Lapham

National Garden Clubs, Accredited Master Judge, Garden Club of America, Approved Judge for Flowre Arrangement

Has won flower arranging awards from National Garden Clubs and the Garden Club of America, 2005 recipient of the Katharine Thomas Cary Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Flower Arangement Educaiton from the GCA

Has served on the Design Division Committee for the New England Spring Flower Show for many years.  Has exhibitied in museums and flower shows througout New England and beynd, including several international flower shows

Has lectured to and given classes to garden clubs throughout the region and has taught classes through the International Design Symposium

Has served as Garden Club Coordinator for "Art in Bloom" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and as Co-Chair of "Flora in Winter" at Tower Hill Botanic Garden

One of the 6 American demonstators at WAFA USA 2011 Boston

Has designs published in the Fine Art of Flower Arranging by Nancy D'Oench and Bonnie Martin, The Philadelphia Flower Show by Adam Levine and Ray Rogers, Designing by Types by National Garden Clubs, and Flower Arranging the American Way (WAFA USA) book.

Has a home-based weddinng and party business, Julie Lapham Designs

Nick Mancini

Nick Mancini is a Master Gardener, specializing in organic vegetables, and fruits. He is also an author, teacher, lecturer, garden consultant, coach and owner of THE ORGANIC GARDENING WORKSHOP in Westport, CT.

Mancini teaches organic gardening at Norwalk Community College Extended Studies and at the Child Development Laboratory School at the same college, and has taught organic gardening for Westport and Fairfield, CT continuing education divisions. 

Nick has lectured to the Northeast Organic Farmers Association, garden clubs, and horticultural societies and at libraries throughout Connecticut and the New York Metro area.  A gardening enthusiast, he is a member of the Connecticut Master Gardeners Association, CT NOFA, Connecticut Community Garden Association, and the Westport Community Garden. 

For more information,  check out his website: www.OrganicGardeningSimplified.com, Blog: theorganicitalian.wordpress.com

Stan Megos

Stan has been a serious gardener for over 50 years.  Fom 1979 to 1995 he was deeply involved in bonsai and is a past President of the Greater Hartford Bonsai Society.  Stan has lectured at the American Bonsai Society's National Convention and has done workshops and demonstrations at the Boston and Potamic Bonsai Study groups and Long Island, CT, RI and MA Bonsai Clubs. 

Stan opened the Variegated Foliage Nursery in 1998 and has been featured on the nationally syndicated TV Garden Show 'In the Garden' and on Fox TV Channel 6 morning show segments of 'Can You Dig It?'  As well as CT Magazine, Fine Gardening, Horticulture, House Beautiful and Better Homes & Gardens Magazines and numerous newspaper articles.

Stan has lectured at Cornell University in NY on how to start and operate a niche garden business and programs on variegated foliage at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, the NY, CT & MA Horticulture Societies and Flower Shows and over 100 garden clubs and master gardeners groups.

Stan has over 10,000 feet of display garen and a picinc grove at the nursery and our catalog and nursery pictures are at www.variegatedfoliage.com.  All of this happened because I stumbled into variegated foliage before most others.

Lisa Napolitano

Lisa Napolitano has, for over a decade, co-hosted the call-in radio show “Garden Talk with Len and Lisa” on WTIC 1080 AM broadcast out of Hartford, CT.

Lisa is an Accredited Nursery Professional, has gardened organically for more than 25 years and ran a small ornamental plant nursery for 7 years employing organic methods to keep the plants healthy and vigorous. For 2 humor-filled hours each week, “Garden Talk with Len and Lisa”, gives the listening audience insight into organic gardening and offers natural solutions to their gardening dilemmas.

Visit them on the web at: www.gardentalk1080.com or see what’s happening on their “facebook” page by searching “Len and Lisa Gardening”.


Margot Shaw

A life-long self-proclaimed “call and order flowers girl,” Shaw reached a turning point when her daughter got married. After working with the floral designer/event planner to create a beautiful wedding, she became enamored with the color, form, beauty and art that is a flower. She knew then that she had to learn more and soon began working for an esteemed floral designer in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. After a few years in the industry, yearning for a magazine(beyond trade publications) about her passion and unable to find anything, Shaw decided to start one.

In March 2007, flower made its debut in the southeastern market. As the first lifestyle magazine published in the United States for flower enthusiasts, novice and professional floral designers and gardeners everywhere, this seasonal publication features informative articles and beautiful photography to delight the senses. The publication’s mission is to “enrich life through the knowledge and beauty of flowers.”