The 3rd Annual, NYBG NYC-Area, Green Industries Intern Field Day Registration still open for the horticultural event of the summer 7/22/15

New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) and the School of Professional Horticulture (SoPH) invite all Green professional interns and an accompanying staff member to participate in the third annual Green Industries Intern Field Day tomorrow, Wednesday, July 22, at 10 a.m. for Hortie Hoopla III.

This Free event includes a full day of informative and inspiring sessions, including remarks from top horticulturists and garden designers, a career information session over lunch, tours of the beautiful gardens and Conservatory at NYBG, a plant ID contest, capped off with a BBQ in the early evening in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden.  

This event is for horticultural interns (18 and older), accompanied by one staff member from each organization.  Plans and a schedule can also be found at: http://www.nybg.org/edu/soph/hortiehoopla.php

Registration is required.  To register: Contact Eric Lieberman: elieberman@nybg.org or 718.817.8580.

Send the names and email addresses of each intern and staff person attending.  Don’t forget to include the organization you work with.  

Hortie Hoopla III - Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Check-ins begin at 9:30 am in the Ross Gallery with talks beginning at 10 am in the Ross Lecture Hall.

My Stories – Five inspiring bios by successful horticulturists who started as interns:

Karen Daubmann, Associate Vice President for Exhibitions and Public Engagement

Heather Liljengren, Supervising Seed Collector/Field Taxonomist, NYC Parks Greenbelt Native Plant Center

Rebecca McMackin, Director of Horticulture, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Jason Sheets, Brooklyn/Queens Regional Director, New York Restoration Project

Thomas Smarr, Director of Horticulture, Friends of the High Line

Thoughts on the Future of Horticulture – Ken Druse, award-winning garden writer, photographer, author of 20 books, and host of the weekly radio program Ken Druse/Real Dirt

Keynote Address: Keep Growing! An Abbreviated Anatomy of Cultivating Yourself and the Craft of Horticulture – Jared Barnes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Horticulture, S.F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX

12–1 p.m. — Career Information Session and Lunch

The Career Information Session and Lunch take place in the Support for Science Pfizer Science building’s lobby and terrace, respectively.

Following the lunch are the Garden Visits that will take place from 1 to 4 pm.  

The nearly 200 attendees expected at this year’s Green Industries Hortie Hoopla III will break into smaller garden visit groups, cleverly broken into cohorts based on the attendees astrological sign. (Did NYBG determine the astrological couplings are compatible or simpatico??)  It’s in the stars!

Aries or Leo, will start at the (1) Native Plant Garden entrance pavilion

Sagittarius & Taurus – start at the (2) Thain Family Forest entrance, just past the Native Plant Garden entrance

Virgo & Capricorn – start at the (3) Azalea Garden entrance

Gemini & Libra – (4) Perennial Garden entrance

Aquarius & Cancer – (5) Conservatory - Palm Dome

Scorpio & Pisces – (6) Conservatory - Casa Azul

This is a great way to meet new people, and who knows, it might lead to some exciting things.  A job or a romance is not out of the question - after all, astrology is a kind of science too - albeit a pseudo-science - but based on relationships… And then there’s that magic - not unlike horticulture or botany or taxonomy or gardens....

There are a total of five gardens to visit.  

At each garden, there will be one “Mystery Plant” to identify.  A 6th Mystery Plant will be in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory Exhibition House, where the pyramid-like glass structure is located.

Also at each garden on the tour there will be three School of Professional Horticulture students who will talk to the guests/attendees about the hort sites and the plants there.  

This year’s elite SoPH students hail from around the globe, represent the best of what horticulture’s future leaders will be, and are fully engaged in the rigors of SoPH’s exclusive study program.  The attendees are sure to be inspired by them.  

While it’s true that I’m again a SoPH instructor this semester and wear my heartful admiration for the students on my sleeve for all to see, anyone - not just those like me who work with them - can readily see their “hort nobility” in the making..  

 

Attendees can also see the blockbuster Frida Kahlo Art Garden Life exhibition. (check out the NYBG website at http://www.nybg.org/frida/. ) For those with smart phones, check out the app http://www.nybg.org/fridamobile/.  There will be time to visit this exhibit between 4 and 5:30 pm.  

Everyone agrees that there's probably no better way to bond than over food and drink. So after all the more formal, educational and informative program elements featured throughout Hortie Hoopla, there's the chance to network and meet new and interesting people who share a common interest: a successful career in horticulture.  

Charles Yurgalevitch & Alexandria Bogo (2014)

The BBQ at the Family Garden starts around 5:30 pm after the conclusion of the garden tours.  Here’s where the real fun and games get going - amid the luscious, vibrant gardens there, in the picnic area - fueled by homegrown food - some from the Bronx’s famed Italian food nirvana better known as Arthur Avenue and beer from The Bronx Brewery.

Launched in July 2013, The New York Botanical Garden Hosts 'Hortie Hoopla ... the Green event was established to better inform young people interested in a career in horticulture, ecology, landscape design, and ecological restoration about the myriad possibilities and opportunities. Geared toward people who want to improve our environment and the world by working with plants, the event gathered more than 80 attendees from the East Coast.

Doubling the size in just one year, the 2014 event attracted about 160 attendees, demonstrating that horticulture and green jobs offer an exciting, burgeoning career option and further - interested candidates were keen to learn about changing opportunities and the chance to network with other green professionals.  Garden Encore: The Second Annual NYC Green Industry …

Few - if any - institution other than NYBG and its SoPH program has the reach and reputation to produce a program of this caliber.  

Hortie Hoopla is the brainchild of Charles Yurgalevitch, Ph.D., Director of the School of Professional Horticulture and SoPH’s dedicated and tireless advocate of the students and the exciting field of horticulture. (see the August 2013 overview post of the first Green Industry Hortie Hoopla)

 

The Garden extends its special thanks go to this year’s sponsors for their generous support that allows them to provide the free lunch and BBQ.

·        Mario Bulfamante & Sons

·        Landcraft Environments, Ltd.

·        Metro Hort Group

·        Town & Gardens, Ltd.

·        NY State Arborists Association

·        NY State Turf & Landscape Association

·        Carl Schurz Park Volunteers

·        Trees New York

·        The Bronx Brewery

·        Bruce James & Pamela Moulton -- my Landscape Design Alumni Group and Metro Hort      associates.  Kudos to you!  What a good example.  Perhaps next year the LDSA can provide sponsorship..

Any anyone who is keen to support the diverse group of future green industry professionals can invest in this program.

See you at the Garden.  

Artful Garden Design Lecture Presented by Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, Eric Groft

Oehme van Sweden design

Eric Groft, principal at the renowned landscape architectural firm, Oehme, van Sweden & Associates, was the featured speaker at the Metrohort’s inaugural meeting earlier this month.

Earlier that same day I attended the NY Design Center’s annual party/event for all things interior design where I met Jack Staub for his gorgeous Private Edens book signing at the Pennoyer Newman showroom (see earlier post) Proving it's a small world after all, especially when it comes to good design, when I told Jack where I was heading, he said to say hello to Eric.  They are professional friends; Jack said Eric brought him in on some projects.  I was happy to deliver his salutation.

Groft’s artful approach to designing the landscape that in turn, he learned from his former boss, James van Sweden, reflects much the way I approach garden design; inspired by the other fine arts and a Genius Loci (spirit of the place) so I was keen to hear him and see his portfolio of work.

Groft is billed as “encouraging everyone to find inspiration in the arts: painting, sculpture, even dance and ballet.  

Whether it’s a ten-foot-square city terrace or a ten-acre expanse, the same principles apply: the intelligent use of positive and negative space, of form and scale, of light and shadow, of rough and smooth textures. Eric illustrates the connection between the path in a garden and the horizon of an iconic painting, the syncopation of jazz and the free form of nature, and the intrigue of a good novel and the mystery of a thoughtfully sculpted landscape. “

Eric shared garden projects from the sandy beaches of Sagaponick to the rolling hills of northern West Chester County.  

The presentation was arranged by chapters, following the format of The Artful Garden: Creative Inspiration for Landscape Design written van Sweden, and my horticulture friend, Tom Christopher. 

Each chapter begins with a quote from a noted artist that sets the tone for the gardens presented.  For example, the Space and Form chapter introduces us to all the dimensions of a garden.  Lao Tzu wrote: “We turn clay to make a vessel; but it is on the space where there is nothing that the usefulness of the vessel depends.” Or Duke Ellington’s musical art introduction to chapter four with the saying, “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.”  

I have an autographed copy of this delightful book. I love the way it laid out and its way of bringing us into artful orbit – connecting garden art to the other fine arts.  It’s an elegant book and a must-have inspirational addition to a garden library.  Van Sweden helped popularize the notion that garden design is a fine art influenced by another art form – referring to it as “The Hybrid Art.” The Artful Garden is filled with images from Monet to a scene from a Kabuki play to illustrate the glamorous inspirations and nexus of where garden art meets the other fine arts.

The breakthrough work with the Chicago Botanic Garden's Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Plant Conservation Center is a classic already – the beautiful and practical rooftop eco-garden there is one that is widely studied and imitated.  

Eric said Chicago’s Green Roof design has made them “A leading authority on green roof research.”  The firm designed the infrastructure for the plants – much attention devoted to water issues from waterproofing to nurturing the “living laboratory” of the planting beds. 

Chicago Botanic Garden Green Roof

The science demonstrates how the 40,000 plants thrive in an extreme environment by using low maintenance – most are grasses.  He showed a field of verbena that is breathtaking.

Chicago Botanic Garden Great Basin: Image courtesy of Wolfgang Oehme

Eric's firm worked with the Botanic Garden to design and create more than 30 water gardens.  

Chicago Botanic Garden Great Basin "before" 

Eric showed how they employed the use of vined trellis bridge as a continuous thread of green in the Chicago Botanic Garden's Great Basin and Water Gardens where – unlike the masses of single plants, the palette here features great plant diversity.  Interesting that funds for transforming the Great Basin came from the creator of the American Girl doll, Pleasant Rowland. (As if having a name like Pleasant, wasn’t happy enough!)

There was a 25-acre Greenwich home with no lawn – but lots and lots of daffodils. There was a landscape that merged house and garden in a grassy landscape that took its inspiration from Monticello. No detail is too insignificant. The firm designed a cobra handrail for a water garden pool, 

and built-in benches. Eric showed a stunning 5-acre house, swimming pool pond with wet and dry coping that is used to best reflect the plants in the water. Double the pleasure. 

Liquid, mirrored beauty.

Photo courtesy of Oehme van Sweden; photograph byClaire Takacs features a Grace Knowlton Sphere sculpture.

Oehm van Sweden Landscape Architects is renowned for its diversity in residential, commercial and institutional work from Manhattan rooftop terraces to a 3,500-acre nature preserve/hunting lodge in Maryland.

I had intended to post this on the 26^th – the one-year anniversary of the death of James van Sweden, the influential landscape architect who helped found the firm in 1977 with Wolfgang Oehme and were very much known for their exuberant use of ornamental grasses and wildflowers – and land conservation. I salute Mr. van Sweden and his passing. The design world mourns its loss...

In his work, Eric writes that he takes pride in his sense of regionalism and attention to the vernacular. He has a passion for horticulture.  This is no small thing.  It’s far too frequent that landscape architects know next to nil about the horticulture and plants. Usually they bring in garden designers or horticulturists and they keep to the hardscaping and land reform. 

Eric Groft talking to Metrohort members 

Eric is widely recognized as an industry leader in environmental/wetland restoration, and shoreline stabilization/revetment.

Via a follow up email, Eric explained about the firm's shoreline work, including some terrific plant suggestions: “The loss of the towering oaks, allowed for better light to hit the lawn and planting beds below and it cleared up an area where we installed some broad lawn steps that led the eye up the hill and connected the “rockery” to the rest of the garden.

     The shoreline revetment in Sagaponick was an opportunity for us to do some revegetation        

     using Amophila/Cord Grass, Limonium/ Sea Lavender, Solidago gramifolium and Eryingium/Sea Holly. 

     This was done in combination with the NY State beach revetment providing a seamless transition from             

     our seaside garden to the ocean and extending the beach significantly

   

     Select plants that can take the transition from dry to wet: Panicum, Carex, Solidago, Rudbeckia.”