SAPS Speaker List for 2025
January 16: By zoom
Phil Blevins, Washington County Extension Agent, VA Cooperative Extension, Crop & Soil Sciences,
Vegetable Gardening. Get inspired to start planning a vegetable garden. Whether you are already experienced or are just getting started, you will learn helpful new ideas and practices. pblevins@vt.edu
February 20: By zoom
Hugh Conlon, Retired, University of Tennessee Extension Area Specialist, Speaker & Author
Rethink Your House Plant Options. House plant options have changed considerably over the past 25 years with many new and in most cases better plant choices for home owners and apartment renters. This talk will include over 30 plant choices and their seasonal care. hubert.conlon@gmail.com
March 20: In person
Gerardo Arceo-Gomez, Associate Professor, Biological Sciences, ETSU
The Importance of Pollinators and Why Pollination Is Such an Amazing Process. Plants and their pollinators form a relationship where each benefits from the other. Explore how these relationships are crucial for both promoting and maintaining plant diversity. gomezg@etsu.edu
April 24: In person
Larry Weaner, Founder of New Directions in the American Landscape
Breaking the Rules: Ecological Landscape Design and Traditional Landscape Methods. Using native plants requires more than simply expanding conventional design practices. Based on observation of how native plants develop in nature, we can create new design, implementation and management techniques, many of which are diametrically opposed to traditional practice. This presentation examines how alternative approaches on everything from selecting, arranging and spacing plants to the simple act of weeding can yield a more easily maintained landscape that still expresses the beauty and richness of our native flora. sweaner@ndal.org (Sarah Weaner, his manager)
May 15: In person
Scott Beuerlein, Horticulturist at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden
If Some is Good, More is Better, Plant Diversity Forever! Diversity of plant material not only enriches our gardens, it creates great habitat for wildlife. It actually makes gardening easier and more beautiful. An inspirational palette of plant material will be presented. Scott.beuerlein@cincinnatizoo.org
September 18: In person
Margery Winters, Assistant Director at Roaring Brook Nature Center, Canton, Connecticut
It’s Not Just Dirt. This presentation explores the amazing processes going on under our feet. Soil is the stomach of the earth, with more than half of all earth’s species living in the soil. It performs many vital functions and is not easily replaced, requiring a minimum of 500 years to form 1 inch of top soil. This talk will explore its many under-appreciated benefits and how to better protect it in our gardens. mwinters@thechildrensmuseumct.org
November 20: In person
Ian Caton, Owner of Woodthrush Native Nursery
Native Species Diversity; the Practical Implications of Genetic Variation for Nurseries, Landscapes and Gardens. We often hear that local ecotypes are best. We often hear that straight species are best. But what do these terms mean for design, especially when the nursery trade is not set up to account for these differences? Our opinions of a plant are often colored by our experience with what genetic type is available in the trade, but the truth is that many of our plants are so much more than that. This lecture will explore the practical implications of genetic variations, ecotypes, and cultivars, and the real impact this can have on our expectations for how a plant will look, how it will behave in the landscape, and in some cases how it has the potential to cause harm to the broader landscape. woodthrushnatives@gmail.com