Woody Plant Conference 2009
I got the opportunity to go to this years Woody Plant Conference, which was held at Swathmore College.
I hadn’t been to one before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised all around! But I have the say, it think the best part about it was just being the same general area with some of horticultures most ‘premiere minds’.
I really enjoyed all the different lectures and speakers. Although I did accidentally nod off once. I blame this on the fact that i had just eaten and the room was extremely dark. But I’m confident it was only for a minute or two; I didn’t feel like I missed any key points, so that’s good.
The first lecture was given by Lynden B. Miller, who was once an artist/painter and now is a public garden designer in NYC. I was extremely interested in this lecture because I had worked in New York doing design and I also spent personal time in the parks that she had designed and implemented while I was living there. She has a book coming out soon that I’m really excited about and hope to get a copy of. Its called Parks, Plants, and People: Beautifying the Urban Landscape.
The second speaker was Rick Lewandowski, the director at the Mt Cuba Center. He spoke on plant diversity, specifically in the Eastern part of the country. He did a quick review and summary of 40 different native plants. If it wasn’t 40 it was very close to it. Being from the east I at least recognized the majority of the selections, so that was neat. There were not labels except on the first plant image and I feel like I would have gleaned more had I been able to see the genus and species as he was describing each plant.
The next lecture was given by Richard Olsen, from the National Arboretum. It focused mainly on the research they’re going there at the Arboretum. He showed us a few images of some not-yet-on-the-market plant cultivars. One looked like a pink Annabelle Hydrangea, that will be very neat to have! At times I had a hard time following what he was saying, but I suppose its my own fault for not paying better attention in my Genetics class, haha.
Lunch was pretty good, we were all given a bag of food and let loose into the campus of Swarthmore college. We ate by the biology building in a nice little secluded spot. The campus is just stunning, I really enjoyed the plant diversity there as well.
The Promising Plant Forum was after lunch and I really enjoyed that section. Three different speakers gave a summary of plants they find to be either good choices for plantings or plants that aren’t as well known that really should be used more.
Paula Shrewsbury, an entomology professor from the University of Maryland gave the next lecture, which was on the Influence of Plant Diversity on Landscape Pest Management. The main point I took away from this was that the more variety of plants you have, the better chance you have to naturally have lesser pest problems. She also emphasized the importance of ‘layering’ your plantings, as opposed to having one lone plant growing in a spot, to lessen stress and therefore vulnerability towards the pest infestations.
Our last lecture was given by Guy Sternburg, who has traveled quiet extensively across the world. He spoke on the genus Quercus and it was pretty fascinating to see how many different types and forms of oaks there are in the world! (Although most of them are found in the northern hemisphere.) He was a very animated speaker and his photos were fun, which was great after a long day of sitting in a dark peaceful room. Had he been less enthusiastic, I may have been tempted to dose in the darkness, haha.
