Registration deadline is April 21!

Hold on to your gardening hats! This inspirational and exhilarating symposium, that has sold out in two of the past three years, will energize your approach to gardening. The symposium will be held at The Equinox Resort  (www.equinoxresort.com), a world-class, four diamond resort in Manchester, VT.  The symposium features six info-packed lectures led by nationally and regionally renowned professionals in their fields as well as a vendors area. Exchange ideas and swap 'the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat' gardening stories with other passionate gardeners at workshops, meals and free time. Drawings for great gardening gifts throughout the Symposium. Plus all attendees will receive a special subscription rate for Garden Gate magazine amounting to 50% off the magazine cover price.  One and two night packages available as well as a day-only rate.    

Read on for more details and registration information.  Questions? Please email Kerry at pyours@nycap.rr.com  or call (518) 885-3471.

Our sincerest thanks to our sponsors who make this event possible. For more information about them, please see below.

FRIDAY, APRIL 23, 2010 

7:00 p.m. Creating Captivating Containers with Annuals.  Presenter:  Heather Poire from Proven Winners.  Heather will share her professional secrets for creating colorful spring containers and how to refresh tired looking containers for season long beauty. Heather has worked at Pleasant View Gardens in New Hampshire for six years and currently works as a regional sales manager. Pleasant View Gardens is one of the founders of Proven Winners North America.  Her expertise is broad, with a specialty in Proven Winners annuals and perennials. Heather graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in Horticulture. She has been an avid gardener since 1997. Heather visits independent garden centers around the Northeast providing guidance, consulting, and garden inspiration.

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 2010

7:30- 9:30 a.m. Breakfast at your leisure in the resort's main dining room.  Visit the  Garden Vendors and Displays in the Bennington Room and conference area foyer.  For a list of vendors, see below.

8:30 - 4:00 p.m.  Garden Vendors and Displays open.  The Bennington Room and conference area foyer.

9:00 a.m. Edible Landscaping with Charlie Nardozzi. Presenter: Charlie Nardozzi from the National Gardening Association. Charlie will share his wonderful expertise about kitchen and vegetable gardening in his charming, easy to understand style. Charlie has gardened for over 20 years, written articles for many magazines, and has authored several books including Vegetable Gardening for Dummies to be released soon. He presently is the senior horticulturist and spokesperson for the National Gardening Association. In 2005 he was the host of PBS's Garden Smart, reaching more than 60 million households. He has also been a gardening expert on many nationally syndicated television shows, such as HGTV's Today at Home and Way to Grow, Discovery Channel's Home Matters, and DIY's Ask DIY. He currently co-hosts In The Garden on a local CBS-affiliate television station in Vermont, does a weekly call-in radio show on WJOY-1230AM, and is a commentator on Vermont Public Radio.

10:00 a.m. Outstanding Perennials and Annuals that Won Accolades in the New England Trial Garden.  Presenter:  Joe Kunkel, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society (www.masshort.org) in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Joe will share the impressive results and a colorful PowerPoint featuring  top performing plants that deserve a spot in our gardens.  Breeding companies from all over the world contribute the newest and best varieties of annuals and perennials to the New England Trial Garden (www.masshort.org/New-England-Trial-Garden) for viewing by amateur and professional gardeners. This garden also tests new and unreleased varieties competing for All-America Selections awards, displays previous winners, and grows hundreds of cultivars submitted for evaluation by commercial plant breeders.  Joe is a garden guru. He served as the president of the Perennial Plant Association in 2005 and also owned his own nursery, Akin' Back Farm in Lagrange, Kentucky for fifteen years. This thriving nursery sold herbs and perennials and featured 18 display gardens. In 2000, he met Adrian Bloom, the head of Blooms of Bressingham, and former host of the PBS series, 'Victory Garden'.  Working with Bloom, Joe helped build five demonstration gardens around the U.S., including spectacular ones in Ohio, New York, Kentucky and California. The fifth Bloom project was the one that brought Joe back to his native Massachusetts. Mass Hort saw the potential for a 'wow' kind of garden as a counterpoint to the adjoining, formal Italianate Garden at Elm Bank. Then in March of 2008, Joe oversaw the nearly 5-acre Garden on the Greenway project in Boston. Joe helped turn a sea of mud and construction scrap into a world-class urban oasis of greenery and color. Joe's brilliance, passion for helping others, and leadership are inspirational. 

11:00  Refreshment break

11:30 a.m.  Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love. Presenter:  Julie Moir Messervy is an internationally known landscape designer, speaker, and writer. In this inspiring lecture, Julie demystifies the art and practice of landscape design for homeowners and professionals alike. Using beautiful images, together with helpful tips, case studies, befores and afters, diagrams, and plans, she walks you through the process of turning any property into the "home outside" you've always dreamed of. Julie highlights many of the ideas introduced in her book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love, illustrating that good landscape design does not have to be overwhelming or expensive.  With over three decades of experience, five books, and numerous high-profile lectures, Julie has emerged as an innovative leader in landscape and garden design theory and practice. Her most recent book, Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love was released in 2009. She has lectured at distinguished venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society and the Getty Museum. Her imaginative landscape design work has delighted clients including the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Marshall Field's, Fidelity Investments, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. In 1999, Julie completed the award-winning Toronto Music Garden, a collaboration with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Man and the City of Toronto to create a three-acre public park based on the "First Suite for Unaccompanied Cello" by J.S. Bach. In 2005, the Toronto Music Garden received a Leonardo Da Vinci award for innovation and creativity. Julie will have a new book about the Toronto Music Garden available soon. For more about Julie, visit her web site at www.juliemoirmesservy.com . 

12:30 p.m. Great Gardens Luncheon

1:45 p.m.  Gardening for Your Soul. Presenter: Julie Moir Messervy.   Contemplate the transcendent power of landscape as seen through Julie's eyes, an award-winning landscape designer and author. Julie explores the deeply personal process of designing a beautiful landscape and reveals how spirituality can inform garden design and the landscapes we create on the earth.

2:55 p.m.  Make Me Beautiful…PLEASE!  Presenter:  Kerry Ann Mendez, garden consultant, designer, writer, and teacher.  Kerry will open your eyes to what your gardens are trying to tell you to make them more beautiful and lower maintenance. You would be surprised at all the wisdom they want to share with you!  She is the owner of Perennially Yours (www.pyours.com), a family-owned business in Ballston Spa, NY that specializes in teaching gardening classes and consulting. Kerry has taught thousands of gardeners how to design and care for low-maintenance perennial gardens, is a popular lecturer, writer, regional television garden segment host, and has been in featured in People, Places & Plants, Fine Gardening, Better Homes and Gardens' Garden Ideas & Outdoor Living, Garden Gate, How-To Gardening, and The Saratogian as well as on HGTV.  (Portrait: (c)Garden Gate magazine)

4:00 p.m.  Symposium concludes

Symposium Packages at the Equinox Resort (www.equinoxresort.com):  

Great Gardens Symposium one and two night packages:   One night (Friday, April 23):  $266.38 for a single or $384.26 for a double ($192.13 per person).  The package includes Friday night accommodations; full breakfast and lunch on Saturday; refreshment break; six lectures, symposium handouts, garden gift, a special $15 one-year subscription or renewal rate for Garden Gate magazine, and door prizes. Two night packages (April 23 & 24):  $441.08 for a single or $585.16 for a double ($292.58 per person).  Two night packages include all of the above plus Saturday night accommodations and Sunday breakfast. Taxes and gratuities are INCLUDED. To make your reservations for  symposium packages, please call The Equinox Resort at (877) 854-7625 Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST) and specify the Great Gardens package. 

Day-Only Symposium Registration Fee:  $98 per person includes five dynamic garden lectures on Saturday, morning coffee, mid-morning refreshments, lunch, handouts, garden gift, a special $15 one-year subscription or renewal rate for Garden Gate magazine, and door prizes.  Plus you may attend the Friday evening lecture at no cost if your schedule permits.  Day only registrations must go through Perennially Yours.  To register with a credit card click on the PayPal button below or to register with a check, please click here to print a registration form.  

Our sincere appreciation to our symposium sponsors

Equinox Valley Nursery www.equinoxvalleynursery.com Route 7A, Manchester, VT. (802) 362-2610. This family owned and operated nursery features 17 greenhouses, extensive tree and shrub selections, an outstanding dwarf conifer collection, 1,000 perennial varieties, the most unusual annuals, tropical conservatory, unique gardener's gift shoppe, display gardens, and exceptional landscaping services. This outstanding nursery has been featured in Yankee, Vermont. Life, The New Yorker, Vermont & Stratton magazines and Across the Fence educational TV.

Gardener's Supply Company  www.gardeners.com  This organically-minded company is based in Burlington, Vermont. They offer a huge assortment of products at great prices  for the garden ranging from organic fertilizers, tools, pest control, sheds, pots, plants and much more! You can purchase products through their mail order division or at their store in Burlington.   In addition to offering superior products, Gardener's Supply Company is passionate about improving the environment and community.  Each year they donate 8% of their profits back to the community and national non-profit organizations that are working on gardening, sustainable agriculture, environmental and hunger-related causes. Gardener's Supply Company purchased 4 Season's Garden Center in Williston, VT  in 2008.  This incredible garden center is Vermont's largest gardening resource.  Check it out at www.4seasonsgc.com. 

Garden Gate Magazine  www.GardenGateMagazine.com. Garden Gate is an outstanding publication that is pure pleasure to read. Features include top plant picks; detailed garden plans; maintenance tricks and techniques; featured gardens used to illustrate design tips; what's new in garden products and plants; how-to-do or build fun projects; and much more. And here is a super bonus - no advertisements!

Proven Winners www.provenwinners.com Proven Winners is the leading brand of high quality flowering plants in North America, sold under the Proven Winners name. The goals of Proven Winners are to introduce the best, most unique, high performing plants, to produce them under the highest quality standards, and to market the plants innovatively. Proven Winners plants are unsurpassed in terms of flowering, growth habit, disease resistance, and garden performance. Check out their informative web site for more details.

SmileMonster.com  www.smilemonster.com  SMILE - IT IS GOOD FOR YOU!  One visit to SmileMonster.com and you are already feeling good. In addition to great photos, stories and ever-changing humor features on the Smile Zone page, you will also find information about upcoming events, fun-raisers, good news stories, and more. Plus they have pages dedicated to men, women, kids and seniors. To top it off, the SmileMonster is just adorable.  SmileMonster.com is an incredible resource for great products and services and it is FUN! Click on the site now and start chuckling - or better yet - have a great big belly laugh! 

Participating Vendors as of April 15, 2010:

Equinox Valley Nursery.   Proprietors, Roger and Penny Preuss.  Manchester, VT. (802) 362-2610.  www.equinoxvalleynursery.com. Extensive garden and gift center also offering landscape design, installation and maintenance services.
Gardener's Supply Company.  Burlington, VT.  (888) 833-1412.  Founding Mission statement in 1984:   "Gardener's Supply is in business to spread the joys and rewards of gardening, because gardening nourishes the body, elevates the spirit, builds community and makes the world a better place." Gardening products, plants and solutions for gardeners who seek more joy and success from gardening.  www.gardeners.com. 
Battle Hill Forge.  Proprietors, Israel 'Izzy' Fitch, Jeffrey Vanam and William Blass.  Falls Village, CT. (860) 824-7767.  www.battlehillforge.com.  Skilled artists and craftsmen specializing in one of a kind metal work, both functional and artistic.
David Burdick Daffodils & More  Proprietor, David Burdick.  Dalton, MA.  (413) 443-1581. Hardy ferns, delphiniums, choice biennials & specialty bulbs.  Plus premium Bromeliads, tropical ferns and unusual container and window box plants.   www.daffodilsandmore.com. 
Floriography.  Proprietor, Jennifer H. Campbell.  West Chesterfield, NH.  (603) 762-1818.  www.FloriographyJewelry.com. www.Floriography.Etsy.com. Jewelry and more inspired by the Victorian language of flowers.
Frivolous Cottage.  Proprietor, Jamie Cashier.  Guilderland, NY (518) 479-4142.  Wrought iron garden accessories including hanging baskets, planters, containers, garden stakes and birdbaths.
Green Mountain Pressed Flowers.  Proprietor, Ellie Roden. Wilmington, VT.  (802) 464-5265.  www.vtpressedflowers.com. Pressed flower art.
John. W. Long, Artist in Wood.  Proprietor, John. W. Long.  Newfane, VT.  (802) 365-7360. John's unique "wall sculptures" are made entirely from old weathered boards from barns. John's work may be seen at fine art and fine craft shows in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, throughout New England.  www.artistinwood.com 
Kerry O. Furlani.  Proprietor, Kerry O. Furlani. Rutland, VT  (802) 773-5406.  www.kerryofurlani.com. Hand-carved Vermont slate in bas-relief forms.
North Branch Landscape.  Proprietors, Steve and Pam Tworig.  Stamford, VT.  (802) 694-1782.  www.northbranchlandscape.com.  Certified Arborists, specializing in landscape design, installation, stone work, and horticultural maintenance services.
PJ Bushey Landscaping & Garden Center.  Melissa Rosenberg.  East Wallingford, VT.  (802) 259-2542.  www.busheyland.com. Extensive garden and gift center also offering landscape design, installation and maintenance services.
The Vermont Bird Place & Sky Watch.  Proprietor, Randy Schmidt.  Manchester Center, VT.  (802) 362-2270.  www.thevermontbirdplace.com.   Thousands of items to create backyard habitats that attract the widest variety of wild birds. Also astronomic telescopes and other accessories to enjoy the night sky.

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