- 20 Sep 2013 - 10:00 am
September General Meeting
Fort WorthThe Story of Peckerwood Garden
By John G. Fairey
Peckerwood Garden is a living labratory of plants in the heart of Texas. And for the last 30 years, Peckerwood Garden, in Hempstead, Texas, has been evolving under the expert care of John G. Fairey; professor of design, plant explorer, and founder of the Yucca Do Nursery. Balancing artistic expression and scientific discovery, Peckerwood fosters educational and scientific programs, and encourages greater knowledge and appreciation of horticulture.
Come and hear John Fairey talk about this unique garden. With over 39 acres of rare drought-tolerant plants native to the southern United States and the remote mountains of Mexico and Asia you will be charmed by the plants sculptural lines. John Fairey is working with The Garden Conservacy to insure the continuance of these unique botanical treasures. After a lifetime of teaching, Fairey remains himself an eager learner, continually experimenting with plants and treating his garden as an artist’s canvas on which he paints with light, foliage, and even the wind. Don’t miss this fascinating program. - 18 Oct 2013 - 10:00 am
October General Meeting
Fort Worth, TexasDebra Prinzing, award-winning author and outdoor living expert, will share the “big picture” story about the resurgence of American flower farms and the emerging eco-floral design movement. Most cut flowers for market are laden with chemicals and imported thousands of miles. But there is a healthier alternative, for you, your home, and the planet. It calls for living seasonally and locally, using a sustainable approach to flower consumption and floral design.
Debra’s visually elegant presentation explores the “slow-flower” concept featured in The 50 Mile Bouquet, her 2011 book. She discusses local, seasonal, and sustainable ways to use flowers that often times grow right in your own backyard. Learn who is leading this movement, how to source locally-grown flowers in your community, and why this cultural shift is so important to gardeners.
The presentation will also feature the personal projects from Debra’s new DIY book, Slow Flowers: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm.
She will share the best ideas from her one-year floral design project, during which she sourced bouquet ingredients from only local and seasonal sources. Highlights include season-by-season bouquets and “green design” tips for the DIY floral designer.
- 20 Dec 2013 - 10:00 am
November General Meeting
Fort Worth“Sugar, Sex and Poison: Shocking Plant Secrets Caught on Camera”
By William Cullina
As we all know, plants are at the base of both the human and non-human food chain. Everything eats plants directly or indirectly, which may or may not be a good thing as far as plants are concerned. Because they do not move around, it is easy to forget that plants are not helpless. They have evolved an incredible arsenal of chemicals, camouflage, spines, hairs and waxes to discourage herbivores. On the other hand, they spend a huge amount of their energy on pollen, nectar, edible fruits and sugary root exudates designed to attract and nourish animals, insects, fungi and bacteria so they can perform services such as pollination, seed dispersal, defense, and nutrient acquisition. It is a carefully balanced natural economy and community based on the products of photosynthesis that is amazing in its complexity and efficiency. Strengthening this natural economy through sound horticultural and agricultural practices is in essence what the organic movement is all about. In this talk Bill Cullina will show how the world of pollen, poisons, pigments pheromones, sugar and sex translates to sound organic practices we can all benefit from.
- 17 Jan 2014 - 10:00 am
January General Meeting
Fort WorthHoward Garrett is well known to most of us in the Dallas Fort Worth area as “The Dirt Doctor” from hearing his radio show and reading his newsletters. He is a landscape architect by training, but has devoted his life to establishing a leadership role in the natural organic marketplace. He provides advice on natural organic gardening, landscaping, pet health, pest control, and natural living.
Along with other organic concerns, Howard will give us the latest news about the issue of GMO’s, or Genetically Modified Organisms in our food supply. He will provide a list of the worst GMO foods to avoid for the sake of good health.
He will also speak about the growing losses in the honeybee population, a concerning phenomenon called Colony Collapse Disorder. The number of managed honey bee colonies has dropped from 5 million in the 1940s to only 2.5 million today. Howard will tell us more about the possible causes of the decline in honeybees’ numbers, and he will suggest ways we can help.
- 21 Feb 2014 - 10:00 am
February General Meeting
Fort WorthAmy Stewart is the award-winning author of six books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world, including four New York Times bestsellers, The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Bugs, Wicked Plants, and Flower Confidential. She lives in Eureka, California, with her husband Scott Brown. They own an antiquarian bookstore called Eureka Books and tend a flock of unruly hens in their backyard.
Amy has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many other newspapers and magazines. She is the co-founder of the popular blog GardenRant and is a contributing editor at Fine Gardening magazine.
- 21 Mar 2014 - 10:00 am
March General Meeting
Fort WorthThe Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession
In this beautifully illustrated talk award–winning author Andrea Wulf tells the tale of a small group of 18th century naturalists that made England a nation of gardeners. It’s the story of a garden revolution that began in America with the farmer John Bartram who transformed the English landscape with the introduction of hundreds of American trees and shrubs.
The talk explores the botanical passions, obsessions, friendships and squabbles that knitted together the lives of six men that changed the world of gardening and botany – including John Bartram, the cantankerous Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, and Joseph Banks who joined Captain Cook’s Endeavour on the greatest voyage of discovery of modern times.
Friends, rivals, enemies, their correspondence, collaborations and squabbles make for a riveting human drama set against the backdrop of the emerging British empire and America’s magnificent forests. As botany and horticulture became a science, the garden became the Eden for everyman.
AUTHOR BIO: Andrea Wulf was born India, moved to Germany as a child, and now lives in Britain. She is the author of several books. Her book “The Brother Gardeners. Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession” won the American Horticultural Society 2010 Book Award and was long-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2008, the most prestigious non-fiction award in the UK. The “Founding Gardeners. The Revolutionary Generation, Nature, and the Shaping of the American Nation” was published under great acclaim in spring 2011 and made it on the New York Times Best Seller List. Andrea has written for many newspapers including the Guardian, the LA Times and the New York Times. She is the Eccles British Library Writer in Residence 2013 and a three-time fellow of the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello.
- 11 Apr 2014 - 05:00 pm
April General Meeting
Fort Worth
Choose Your Garden
website : http://fortworthgardenclub.org/
email : fwgclub@gmail.com
