Winter garden seminar promises colorful topics

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Men’s Garden Club of Youngstown has chosen Four Seasons of Color as the theme of its annual Winter Seminar. The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 15 at Fellows Riverside Gardens, 123 McKinley Ave.

The speakers, Andrew Bunting, Brent Markus and Robert Rensel, will point out some of the best trees, shrubs and perennials for Midwest gardens and explain how to combine them for an ever-changing, colorful landscape that can be enjoyed all year. Included will be seasonal containers that create focus and accents.

Registration for the seminar is set from 7:45 to 8:45 a.m., and the fee is $40, or $30 for MGCY members. After Feb. 7 late reservations will be accepted only if space is available, and the fee will be $50.

The fee is not refundable after Feb. 1, but registration is transferable. Registration forms can be obtained at www.mgcy.org. Included in the fee are seminar materials, continental breakfast, full buffet lunch and door prizes.

Seminar topics follow:

• Four seasons of color with dwarf conifers.

• Containers for the four seasons.

• A tour of conifers — top 25, new and upcoming.

• Evolution of a plant man’s garden to provide year-round color.

• Garden shorts — hints and shortcuts from participants.

Bunting is the curator of the Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College. He also owns a design-and-build garden company, Fine Garden Creations.

His home garden, Belvidere, has been featured in This Old House Magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He will show how he has surrounded his home with favorite plants, all with year-round color in mind.

Markus won Best Collector’s Garden by the Chicago Tribune for the redesign of his family’s half-acre property. At the time he was 15, and he later started his own design business. He also founded Rare Tree Nursery in Oregon, where he is propagating about 700 varieties of trees.

Considered the wunderkind of the Oregon nursery world, Markus will explain how to create seasonal color with deciduous and conifer tree plantings.

Rensel, a CPA, began a second career in 2005 as a gardener at the Cleveland Botanical Garden. For six years he has coordinated the Geis Terrace displays, which included tropical plants, aquatic plants and extensive four-season container designs. He also maintains the Japanese Garden at CBG.

Rensel will share his tips for creating year-round color with containers.

Mill Creek MetroParks is co-sponsoring Four Seasons of Color, which as usual coincides with the opening of Fellows Riverside Gardens’ twice-lived book sale.