Cutting Edge Garden Education
for The Mountain West

USDA Hardiness Zones

Presenter
Cheryl Moore-Gough

Cheryl Moore-Gough was the Technical Editor for Horticulture for Zone 4 Magazine from it’s inception in 2008. She has also been an Adjunct Assistant Professor for Montana State University, and a prolific writer on many plant and garden related topics including vegetable growing, seed saving, and ornamental gardening.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Learn what USDA Hardiness Zones mean
Learn what USDA Hardiness Zones don’t mean
Learn what else you need to know regarding your growing conditions to be successful

AUDIO

What Characterizes a Steppe Ecozone

Presenter
Panayoti Kelaidis

Panayoti Kelaidis is Senior Curator and Director of Outreach at the Denver Botanic Gardens. He is a world-renowned plantsman and explorer who has revolutionized Rocky Mountain horticulture, with his countless introductions to horticulture and his avant garde approach to gardening in the West.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Steppe climate: We have much to gain by looking at gardening from a global perspective
Alpine gardens offer us an appropriate model of working with our environment
How do we embrace a Western Aesthetic?

SLIDES

AUDIO

How Participating in a Discussion Forum Can Benefit Your Garden

Presenter
Chris Heiler

Chris Heiler is a green industry social media consultant. Chris regularly speaks at landscape industry events across the country, writes for industry publications, and also shares his social media expertise with hundreds of landscape professionals through his site at LandscapeLeadership.com.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Introduction to a simple and free platform for establishing helpful connections
Get support and answers quickly from fellow gardeners working with similar conditions
Learn with others; share ideas and useful resources

AUDIO

Good Design Simplifies Garden Tasks and Enhances Enjoyment of Outdoor Space

Presenter
Robert Littlepage

Robert Littlepage APLD; RLA is a licensed landscape architect in both California and Louisiana. Since 1985 he has designed gardens throughout the western United States. He has also consulted on gardens in Louisiana, France and England. In addition to his architecture practice he is the Founder/Director of the California School of Garden Design, and former instructor of design and irrigation at Sierra College.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Know your site
Good Design is Low Maintenance
Think Local

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

I Just Can’t Contain Myself

Presenter
Sheila Schultz

Sheila Schultz is a celebrated garden designer with a zeal for containers. Recognized by Fine Gardening she has been the winner of their container contest for multiple years and she has been featured many other renowned publications. Sheila’s style is unique in that the textural beauty of the foliage – be it from a perennial, succulent, cactus or grass – takes center stage in her designs.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

How to make container gardening in the West easy
Creative ideas for interesting flare
Using perennials in containers for less maintenance

SLIDESHOW

Designing Contemporary Gardens with Heirloom Plants

Presenter
Mary Ann Newcomer

Mary Ann Newcomer, is a self-proclaimed “garden scribe, scout and speaker.” Garden junkie. Native Idahoan. High and dry in the Intermountain West. Two books: one for Timber Press – Vegetable Gardening in the Mountain States, & The Rocky Mountain Gardener’s Handbook. Encouraging gardeners to get down and dirty.

AREAS OF FOCUS: 

Why heirloom plants are perfect for the intermountain West
Who’s who in this gorgeous “scentimental” palette
Design tips for using these oldies but goodies

SLIDES

AUDIO

What it Means to Work With Nature in a High and Dry Climate

Presenter
Robert Nold

Robert Nold is an avid gardener constantly exploring how best to garden within the parameters he’s inherited living in the West. His conclusions and discoveries have been published in a host of noteworthy publications including several books he’s authored.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

The truth about amending with organic matter and the more important ingredient
Why Western gardeners should ignore most everything they read
The art of growing plants in heavy clay soil

AUDIO

Creating No Waste Gardens in the West

Presenter
Marcia Tatroe

Marcia Tatroe is author of Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West, described as the first complete gardening book to cover the hot, dry, desert and plains areas of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming, Idaho, Montana. It features how to create your own regional aesthetic, as well as hundreds of practical suggestions to overcome the challenges of gardening in the Intermountain West. Marcia is also a regular contributor to Fine Gardening and a columnist for Denver Post, and Sunset.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Mulch and permaculture
Garden Art
Reducing, reusing, and recycling in the Western garden for smarter ecology and lower bills

SLIDESHOW

Creating a Natural Garden

Presenter
Lauren Springer Ogden

Lauren Springer Ogden worked in public gardens on both sides of the Atlantic before receiving her master’s degree in horticulture. At Denver Botanic Gardens, she designed the Watersmart and Romantic Gardens. An award-winning writer and photographer, she is author of The Undaunted Garden, named one of the 75 best American gardening books of the last century by the American Horticultural Society. Lauren and her work have been featured on television and in many publications and books. She is a popular speaker in the United States and Canada.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

What is a natural garden and why have one?
Aesthetics and design concepts of a natural garden
Practical aspects of creating and stewarding a natural garden

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

The Art of Growing Plants and where to start

Presenter
Mike Bone

Mike Bone, plant propagator extraordinaire for the Denver Botanic Gardens, he also is their Curator of Steppe Collection where he has focused his work on seed collection and the study of steppe plants and ecology. Most of his work is done in Western North America but he has traveled to Central Asia to study plants from the steppes and mountains there. He is also actively involved in the Plant Select program as well as the IPPS (International Plant Propagators’ Society).

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Going from container soil to garden; why they are different and how to bridge the gap
Great benefits from plants to seed
Tips on successful in-situ seed growing

AUDIO

Myth busting: Creative gardening strategies for tough locations

Presenter
Tom Heald

Tom Heald is the managing partner for the Wyoming Plant Company, specializing in hardy native and adapted plants for local conditions. Previously, Tom was a Wyoming Horticultural Extension Educator where he worked with thousands of homeowners who struggled to grow plants in the challenging Wyoming environment. Many times it was not the homeowner at fault, but the fact that retail outlets were offering inappropriate plant choices for the environment.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Plants for windbreaks and visual screens
Soil strategies to improve successful plantings
Common myths explored and debunked

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

The Easiest to Grow, Longest Blooming Durable Plants for the Western Garden

Presenter
Pat Hayward

Pat Hayward is the Executive Director of Plant Select®, a collaboration of Colorado State University, Denver Botanic Gardens, and regional horticulturists seeking out and distributing the best plants for western gardens. Pat has worked in all facets of Rocky Mountain regional horticulture since 1979. A lecturer, writer and photographer, she has written for numerous national publications, co-authored two books, and her gardens have been featured in regional and national publications

AREAS OF FOCUS:

How Plant Select is forging a truly American style of horticulture
A bold, new plant palette revolutionizing the way we garden
Plants that thrive in both our variable winters and our hot summers

SLIDE

AUDIO

Maintenance: What to do to Keep Your Western Garden Beautiful all Year

Presenter
Eva Montane

Eva Montane got her start in ornamental horticulture doing fine perennial maintenance with Genevieve Schmidt of northcoastgardening.com blogging fame. Eva holds a certificate from the California School of Garden Design, is a designer, writer, and educator, and has been published in Colorado Gardener and Zone 4 among other publications. She served as her local Colorado Native Plant Society chapter’s VP for 3 years and guided for the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival 10 years, running. Eva has been running Columbine Landscapes Co in Durango, Colorado since 2015.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Minimal maintenance is required
When to prune and cut back
How to know what to deadhead, when, and why

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

Rock Gardening with Native Plants from around the world

Presenter
Bill Adams

Bill Adams owns and operates Sunscapes Rare Plant Nursery, a small specialty nursery growing choice rock garden, hardy native and unusual dryland plants from around the world. He is a leader in the current effort to promote Western Water Wise Landscaping in the City of Pueblo, where he has been instrumental in the designing, planting and maintenance of numerous Water Wise gardens.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

The huge diversity of plants: the more you look the more you will find
Where in the world do you find plants that adapt to our gardens in the Interior West?
PowerPoint Presentation – My favorite plants for rock gardens and native landscapes

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

Why and how to expand your plant Palette

Presenter
Mike Kintgen

Mike Kintgen, Senior Horticulturist at Denver Botanic Gardens. Mike is a remarkable horticulturist who began volunteering at Denver Botanic Gardens when he was just 11 years old and has been there ever since minus a three year hiatus from DBG to intern at Chicago Botanic Garden. Mike holds a degree in Landscape Horticulture from Colorado State University. Mike has since taken over charge of the rock gardens at DBG from Panayoti Kelaidis. Mike’s passion for his subject is clear when seeing him in his garden surrounded by a unique and lovely diversity of plants from around the world; many of which came from his own collecting trips.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

There are so many great plant species and varieties
There are many benefits to growing a greater diversity of plants
How and where to find less common selections

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

5 things every western gardener should know before planting natives

Presenter
Kathy Settevendemie

Kathy Settevendemie started Blackfoot Native Plant Nursery in 2003, a wholesale nursery selling Montana native plants. She served as a board member of the Montana Native Plant Society and conducted workshops on landscaping with native plants throughout western Montana in addition to providing consultations to landowners. Madeline Mazurski accompanies her in this talk.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

Where did that plant come from and why does it matter?
Native plants that make great alternatives to standard garden species
Creating native plant communities in your garden

SLIDESHOW

Penstemons, the nearly perfect perennials for any garden

Presenter
Bob Pennington

Bob Pennington. Together with his family, Bob bought and revived a defunct plant nursery in 1975, knowing very little about business or growing plants commercially when they started (probably a key to their success he says). Agua Fria Nursery continues to thrive today. Bob is a past president of the American Penstemon Society (APSDEV.org), a founding member and past president of the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, a current board member of the Eriogonum Society (Eriogonum.org), a plant geek, with no formal plant education, and a husband, father, and grandfather.

AREA OF FOCUS:

Penstemon is a huge genus of native American plants, with over 280 species
There is a species for almost every garden niche: tall, short, arid, moist, hot cold, anything but deep shade Penstemons are inherit survivors, and require very little effort to grow

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

Growing Vegetables in the semi-arid west

Presenter
Jane Shellenberger

Jane Shellenberger is the publisher and editor of the independent news magazine, Colorado Gardener, “A Thinking Gardener’s Companion”, which she founded in 1996. An eclectic gardener she learned about plants from her botanist mother. She is also the author of the new book Organic Gardener’s Companion, Growing Vegetables in the West.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

What crops grow best in the West
How to support pollinators & other beneficial insects while decreasing pests
Building great soil by supporting the soil life

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO

Roses can be as easy to grow as weeds

Presenter
Joan Franson

Joan Franson served as President of Denver Rose Society; Rocky Mountain District Director. She was awarded the Rocky Mountain District Silver Honor Medal in 1978 and the Denver Rose Society Bronze Medal in 2000. A long standing Master Rosarian (Rocky Mountain District Outstanding Consulting Rosarian in 2001), Joan frequently wrote lively and entertaining articles and educational material on roses. At any given time, she grew about 125 roses of all types at home – Hybrid Teas, Grandifloras, Floribundas, Polyanthas, Miniatures, Climbers, Old Garden Roses, Canadian Hardy roses, English or Austin roses, Shrubs and Species. It is even more precious to hear Joan’s wisdom, shared in her own voice here, since she is now departed. Read Joan’s article about miniature roses here.

AREAS OF FOCUS:

The toughest, easiest roses for the Interior West
The creme de la creme and where to get them
Why our region is ideal for growing roses

SLIDESHOW

AUDIO