What I Learned This Summer (Part 1)

Just flew in from St. Louis and boy are my arms tired! [Baadum – ch!]

I have very diverse responsibilities and interests, but all in one way or another relate to this thing called Gardening. I recently attended two very different conferences, both in St. Louis but thankfully scheduled back-to-back. The first was the Perennial Plant
Association (PPA): a colorful, enthusiastic, slightly eccentric group of growers, breeders, designers, and geeks of the highest order. Bus tours and talks centered on plants, glorious plants….of which we simply cannot get enough.

  Paul Westervelt is so excited...PPA visits Missouri Botanical Garden

Hot plants!!! Paul Westervelt expresses his enthusiasm during the PPA tour of the fabulous Missouri Botanic Garden.

The second was the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) annual conference. Not so colorful. Lots of data…even presented some myself. But very necessary – especially in our realm (publish or perish). “Horticulture” is a ridiculously broad umbrella, under which falls food crops, ornamentals, biotechnology, econom cs, and some social sciences.  There were speakers and posters on a mind-boggling array of topics – from horticulture curricula to stress physiology; tropical fruits to public horticulture. Some of this research and information is ready for “technology transfer”, that is, with a bit of tweaking,
the results are directly applicable, whether to a nursery grower or a consumer.  Much of it is not; and will exist only in that “researcher to researcher” ether.

My point: there are many outlets for the information shared at PPA, i.e. hot new plants on the Terra Nova website, design articles by the various garden writers in attendance, the newest book from Timber Press, etc. For ASHS, not so much, unless you subscribe to HortScience and receive the 1000+ pages of abstracts from the meeting.

This is where we can help. Jeff Gillman has done a yeoman’s job at translating science to gardeners, and now all of us involved in this blog are going to chip in.  Call it “insider
information” or the less-glamorous “stuff that’s technical/boring to read but with
hidden nuggets of usefulness”.  The one thing we hope makes this useful to you is that we all consider ourselves gardeners, and though our day jobs certainly inform how we manage our own little piece of heaven, you’ll get a good dose of adventure, frustration, triumph, plant lust, and humor.

My next few blog contributions will be “things I learned in St. Louis”.  Not least of which is the hoppy goodness of locally-brewed Schlafly Pale Ale.

Introducing Holly Scoggins

Greetings from the southernmost member of this squad!  I’m an Associate Professor in the Department of Horticulture at Virginia Tech and Director of the Hahn Horticulture Garden, our fabulous 6-acre teaching and display garden on campus. Blacksburg is in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwest Virginia, USDA Zone 6-ish,  elevation of 2,080 feet. I teach Herbaceous Landscape Plants, Greenhouse Management, Floriculture, and  a Public Gardens course. My research focuses on nursery and greenhouse production of perennials. In both sharing my research and in learning what’s new and improved, I interact extensively with the state and regional green industry – growers, plant breeders, landscapers, and garden centers. I love the business side of things – and am a rabid plant shopper, so this works out well!

I’m originally an Army brat but spent most of my formative years (the 80’s and 90’s) in Athens, Ga.  My B.S. (Agricultural Economics) and M.S. (Horticulture) are from the University of Georgia, and my Ph.D (Horticulture) is from North Carolina State University.  So lotsa Zone 7 experience under my belt.

Professional credentials aside, I guess I would describe myself as a card-carrying plant dork (actually, I’m just a dork, period). Love, love, LOVE to garden, whether at work or at home. My partner and I have a 19-acre farm stuck on the side of mountain – we have four acres of u-pick blueberries along with Christmas trees, honey bees, chickens, a small greenhouse, veg gardens, and lots and lots of ornamentals, of course.  Just in case you were wondering where I was coming from. I’m so pleased to be working with such talented and clever folks on this blog!

Introducing Linda Chalker-Scott

I’m an associate professor in the department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture at Washington State University.  I’m also an Extension Specialist in Urban Horticulture, meaning that I have a global classroom rather than one physically located on a college campus.  I’m trained as a woody plant physiologist and I apply this knowledge to understanding how trees and shrubs function in urban environments.  This is a fancy way of saying I enjoy diagnosing landscape failures – sort of a Horticultural CSI thing.

I’m a native Washingtonian, but I spent my academic life at Oregon State University and then moved to Buffalo for my first university position.  I moved back to Seattle in 1997 and worked at University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture.  In 2001 we were fire-bombed by ecoterrorists (and yes, the irony of the greenest center on campus being targeted by ecoterrorists is not lost on me) and I lost my ability to do lab work.  During this time I developed a more applied research program and in 2004 I began my Extension position with WSU.

Jeff and I have never actually met, but we’ve been chatting via internet for some time.  Apparently he manages his time better than I, since he has the ability to spearhead this blog on top of everything else he does.  I know I’m looking forward to this new venue for discussing the science behind America’s favorite outdoor activity (assuming that’s still gardening and not Ultimate Frisbee or frog licking).

Introducing Jeff Gillman

gillman09

I’m an associate professor in the department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota.  Officially I work mostly with trees and shrubs, but I’ve also been known to test things like egg shells for stopping slugs, beer for its qualities as a fertilizer, and milk for its fungicidal qualities.

I come from a small town in Pennsylvania, just west of Philadelphia, where I first learned about growing trees in my parents’ small orchard.  I attended Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster PA, then earned a masters degree in entomology and a Ph.D. in horticulture from the University of Georgia (which, incidentally, is also where I met my wife).  After Georgia I came north to Minnesota.

I’ve been itching to do a blog for about a year now, one where I could share my “adventures in horticulture,” but I never felt that I had the time to actually put one together.  Then, a couple of months ago, Linda Chalker-Scott (who you’ll meet shortly) from Washington State and I had a conversation which resulted in our getting together with Holly Scoggins from Virginia Tech, James Nienhuis from the University of Wisconsin, and Bert Cregg from Michigan State and setting up this blog.

For now, each of us will be posting one day a week starting on August 3rd.  Before that each of us will post a short introduction of ourselves so that you can get a sense of who we are.  I look forward to blogging soon!