A Garden Professor migrates east, albeit briefly

I was AWOL last week, as I had 3 presentations to get ready for 3 different states all in the span of 4 days.  Yow!  But they are over and done, and I’ll try to keep up on the blog from now on.

This is a short but amusing post (to me anyway).  My second talk was in Virginia, where I spoke to Master Gardeners at their annual conference.  The speaker right before my talk was fellow GP Holly Scoggins.  (Note to self: never agree to follow Dr. Scoggins again.  I’m not nearly as amusing, though I am almost as tall.)

Anyway, Holly was discussing garden trends among other things and mentioned meta-gardens.  Hmmm.  I hadn’t heard of these, but assumed that, like meta-analyses, they were probably gardens that showcased plant collections from other places.  Kind of like arboreta but smaller, and maybe something you could do at home.  I nodded wisely, pretending that I was fully on board with this new trend.

Alas.  My west coast ears were not adapted to Holly’s southern accent.  As I discovered several slides later when it was obvious she was talking about meadow gardens.

Oh well.

Published by

Linda Chalker-Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and a Professor in the Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university Extension fact sheets. Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW Press (2019). In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening – produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017 by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award. "The Garden Professors" Facebook page - www.facebook.com/TheGardenProfessors "The Garden Professors" Facebook group - www.facebook.com/groups/GardenProfessors Books: http://www.sustainablelandscapesandgardens.com

6 thoughts on “A Garden Professor migrates east, albeit briefly”

  1. Yes, Virginia is a farn cuntry with a language all its own. Those of us who were raised heeya think all yall talk funny! Kinda like the folks on TV who read tha national news. 😉

    Reply

  2. I’m reading this and I’m thinking wow I haven’t heard of this term perhaps I could use this term to impress my non gardening friends then I read the end of your story. It gave me a laugh and took my mind off my poison ivy rash.

    Reply

  3. Presumably, a meta-garden would be a garden about a garden. So post-modern! (But I’m not sure what it would actually look like . . .)

    Reply

  4. Funny – I knew what she was talking about right away. Not that I’m some uber-cutting-edge gardener or trendsetter though. But I am from Alabama.

    Reply

  6. Thank goodness you didn’t hear me say “white wine.”
    Actually not born and bred Southerner; I’m an Army brat, though the formative (7th grade and on) years were spent in Athens, Georgia.

    Reply

Leave a Reply