Toronto Botanical Garden

EDWARDS LECTURES 2010

SUMMER 2010

CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS

EVENTS

The Toronto Botanical Garden is proud to present the Fall 2010 and Winter 2011 Edwards
Lecture Series, supported by the Edwards Charitable Foundation. We’ve searched the world
to bring you the best in experts, advice and, most importantly, inspiration. These speakers
will embolden you to try new plants, to use new gardening techniques and to consider the
broader impact that horticulture has on our neighbourhoods, city and global community.

Lectures are held in the Floral Hall at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Admission: Public $20/ Students $15/ TBG members free.
Door sales only. Limited seating.

Wednesday, September 22
Dig It Up!
Helen Dillon
Renowned author, broadcaster and garden consultant Helen Dillon has made a number of changes to her Dublin property over the past 40 years. She has experienced the challenges that we all have: lack of room, too much shade, and she — and her garden — have survived. If you’re thinking of making a garden change, this lecture is a must.

Thursday, October 14
Horticultural Travels in Iran
John Mitchell
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
This gardening travelogue will take us from Tehran in the south, through the desert to the country’s largest range, the Zagros Mountains. We’ll tour Esfahan, one of the most beautiful cities in the Middle East, head to the ancient city of Alborz in Central Iran and then see Orumiyeh with its therapeutic saltwater lake. Let John delight you with the amazing plants that thrive in these varied and often extreme conditions.

Wednesday, October 27
Bringing Nature Home
Douglas Tallamy
Douglas Tallamy has spent a lifetime dedicated to preserving the ecosystem. In this lecture, he will discuss the important ecological roles of plants in our landscapes, emphasize the benefits of designing gardens with these roles in mind, and explore the consequences of failing to do so. After the lecture, the author will be available to sign his book Bringing Nature Home. In partnership with the North American Native Plant Society. Reduced admission fee for members of NANPS.

Tuesday, November 16
A Sense of Place: Site-Specific Design
David Culp
Brandywine Cottage is the home of author, lecturer and hellebore hybridizer David Culp. In this lecture, he uses the cottage and surrounding land as an example of how to design a space in tune with its natural surroundings. His adaptation of a Pennsylvania county garden includes many plant collections, including the specialty of the house, hellebores. If you’re looking for inspiring garden images, this is the lecture for you.

Tuesday, November 30
Conifers: Terrific Non-Seasonal Plants
Jame s E. Eckenwalder
Author of the recently released Conifers of the World: A Complete Reference, Eckenwalder is a conifer specialist whose enthusiasms include the evolution and history of conifers and everything gardeners need to know about these all-season plants. You won’t believe the varieties available of these useful and beautiful trees. After the lecture, he will be available to sign copies of his book.

Thursday, January 27
When Native Plants Are Not the Answer
Belinda Gallagher
Writers and conservationists alike recommend native plants for drought tolerance and pest and disease resistance in a home garden. But is this true? Belinda Gallagher, Head of Horticulture at the Royal Botanical Gardens and owner/operator of triffids plants, will discuss the definition ofnative, what provenance means, how to choose the right native plant for
the right situation and when NOT to plant them.

Tuesday, February 22
Romance with Trees
Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds
Celebrated Canadian writers Wayne Grady and Merilyn Simonds fell in love while measuring an ancient balsam poplar. The fascinating intertwining of the lives of trees and people has been a constant theme in both their books and their lives. The couple lives in a 200-year-old stone house north of Kingston, surrounded by 15 acres of woodland, in what is known as the Frontenac Arch.

COMING IN APRIL! Adrienne Clarkson
On Wednesday, April 6, the TBG’s Honorary Patron Adrienne Clarkson will be presenting Transformations: Parking Lots, Plants and Paradise.

SPEAKERS BIOGRAPHIES

Helen Dillon: Helen is an author, broadcaster and garden consultant. She has lectured many times in USA, New Zealand, Germany, France, Australia and the UK and has traveled extensively in order to study plants in Nepal, China, South America, South Africa and New Zealand. In 1999, she was awarded the Gold Veitch Memorial Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society in England and in 2003 the George Robert White Medal of Honour from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In autumn 2004, she was made a distinguished counsellor to the Board of the New York Botanical Garden. The garden at 45 Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6, Ireland has been open to the public for the last 30 years. Helen Dillon's Garden Book - her latest book - was published November 2007 by Frances Lincoln and was Robin Lane Fox [of the Financial Times]book of the year. This is also published in the US by Timber Press as 'Down to Earth with Helen Dillon'. This was top of the list of bestsellers of Timber Press for 4 months.

John Mitchell: John has worked at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for 26 years in the Herbaceous and Alpine area. He started out as seed and specimen collector and progressed to alpine supervisor 15 years ago. His focus now is to maintain and develop the alpine section which includes the rock garden, woodland garden, peat wall and alpine house and frame area. He has been on expeditions to China, Tibet, Alaska and Iran.

Douglas Tallamy: Doug is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, where he has written more than 65 research articles and has taught insect taxonomy, behavioral ecology, and other subjects. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. In his free time Tallamy enjoys photography (particularly of insects and birds), hiking and backpacking with his wife in remote places, swimming and canoeing, and teaching young people about the importance of the life forms around them.

Daivd Culp: Douglas is a lecturer, a contributing editor for Horticulture magazine, a regular author for Fine Gardening and other magazines, a garden designer, past chair of the PA Hardy Plant Society and a new plant researcher for Sunny Border Nurseries, Kensington, CT.

James E. Eckenwalder: James is associate professor of plant systematics at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Toronto, where he focuses on taxonomy, natural hybridization, and macroevolution. He graduated from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and earned his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. His research, which has resulted in significant changes to conifer taxonomy, emphasizes the classification and evolution of vascular plants, especially trees. His interests include the theoretical and practical bases of plant classification, the tracing of evolutionary histories, the integration of different lines of taxonomic evidence into classifications, the most effective ways of incorporating taxonomically awkward organisms — especially hybrids and fossils — into classifications, and the testing of taxonomic hypotheses.