This year’s symposium takes place July 30 through August 3 in the horticulturally vibrant Raleigh-Durham region of North Carolina. Attendees can explore outstanding local gardens, visit one-of-a-kind retail garden centers, and tour innovative production facilities. You’ll also hear and engage with industry experts from around the world. Most importantly, you’ll spend time with the best in the industry.
Highlights include:
- Keynote by Fergus Garrett: Head Gardener at Great Dixter. Lauded for his extraordinary plantsmanship and sophisticated design sensibility, Garrett is still down-to-earth and accessible. He’ll connect attendees with the Great Dixter approach to planting design.
- Keynote by Richard Hartlage: Founding Principal & CEO, Land Morphology. His award-winning, innovative designs heighten the human experience of the natural world. Hartlage will focus on green trends in landscape architecture, including the European meadow and matrix planting styles now emerging as significant components in American landscape architecture.
- Business Talks: A new addition to the symposium, this one-day intensive features top speakers from the business side of the horticultural industry. Owners and managers will discover new tools to strengthen and grow their operations.
- Tours: See everything the region has to offer during our week-long, behind-the-scenes tours. Some of the site visits include:
o Plant Delights Nursery & Juniper Level Botanic Gardens. An award-winning, online nursery specializing in rare and unusual perennials. The nursery and adjacent six-acre botanic garden reflect founder Tony Avent’s 60+ plant-hunting expeditions to locations around the world. It’s a plant paradise.
o Hoffman Nursery, Inc., which specializes in ornamental and native grass liners. Owned by John and Jill Hoffman, the nursery has a 51,000 sq. ft. greenhouse, automated production lines, and beautiful gardens focusing on grasses.
o Niche Gardens, a mail-order and retail nursery. They specialize in native and unusual perennials, grasses, ferns, and woodies. Their extensive display gardens are designed for pleasure, learning, and fun!
- Another 20+ speakers, including Ron Gagliardo, Sr. Manager of Horticulture Services for Amazon.com; iris breeder Kevin Vaughn; Judith Jones, owner of Fancy Fronds Nursery; Larry Mellichamp, retired Professor of Botany & Horticulture & former Director of the Botanical Gardens at UNC-Charlotte; Christian Kress, founder of Sarastro-Stauden Nursery in Austria; George Coombs, Mt. Cuba Center; Anne Spafford, Assoc. Professor of Landscape Design at NC State Univ.; and Annabel Renwick, Sarah P. Duke Gardens.
Advanced registration is required and early bird pricing ends June 1. See the program description and get registration information on their website.
Perennial Plant Symposium
www.perennialplant.org