Events Ideas, Tips & Guides

'Oi, stand aside,' I hear you say… 'we want to see the garden you've been telling us about for months!' Well, here it is... ...almost exactly the same view, but without us! I'm also rather fond of this photo looking the other way, despite it being shot into the light. I think it gives it a slightly mystical feeling, especially as I mentally called the tree on

I spent an amazing couple of days at RHS Chelsea helping Naomi with the planting tasks for her Flood Resilient garden. This is what I learned along the way... Have hi viz, will travel! L

I’M OPENING my garden on Saturday June 8 from 10 AM to 4 PM as part of a weekend of events in my Hudson Valley, N.Y., community, that also includes the spectacular garden of Peter Bevacqua and Stephen King (above) nearby, two plant sales, and more. Tickets are on sale now (links at the bottom of the page); last year they sold out, so we’ve upped the numbers a bit but….don’t dally!

TO SAY I WAS surprised would be understating it. A lot. When I got the call from the Scott Arboretum at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania recently that I’d been named as the 2024 recipient of their prestigious Scott Medal, I was completely caught off guard.

With contestants from 15 nations all battling it out to win the Interflora World Cup, it’s easy to say that this year was a nail-biter. But before the winner was announced, our team headed over to Manchester’s Central Convention Complex to see what it was all about.

That’s why Ken Druse and I are offering a free Urgent Garden Question Open House webinar on August 31, 2023 on Zoom, at 6-7:15 PM Eastern time (register at this link). The details: First, a presentation: Join us for a short slideshow from our gardens—some highlights, some of what we’ve learned along the way, and also some of what’s been bugging us. (Yes, we have Urgent Garden Questions of our own that always need answering, too!)

FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE AREA, meaning the Hudson Valley of New York State or thereabouts, these spring events here in the garden and elsewhere may be of interest: Saturday March 14, Spring Garden Day, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rensselaer County. (518) 272-4210. This popular, day-long annual event in Troy, New York, includes a choice of classes, from growing orchids at home to successful vegetable gardening.

I’ll be roaming the Northeast in the early going, in places as close to home as the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York, but also across Massachusetts and as far as New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and coastal Connecticut. Events here in the garden will begin again in April; stay tuned for a fuller schedule of those, with just the first couple mentioned below.What’s planned already:Saturday, February 19, 2 PM: Lecture to benefit Berkshire Botanical Garden, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Great Barrington, MA.Thursday, March 3, 7 PM: R.J. Ju

SOMETIMES the weather is rainy, sometimes it’s dry. The way to get the best production from your vegetable or fruit plants (or pots, or ornamentals…) is with timely watering, and the best way to water is with drip irrigation. Learn from Lee Reich to design and install a drip-irrigation system, in a hands-on workshop at the garden of Margaret Roach in Copake Falls, NY.Learn the benefits (saves water, bigger yields, healthier plants–and save time since it’s easily automated!) Learn to design and install a system Participate in a hands-on installation Longtime nationally known gardener and garden writer Lee Reich demonstrates hands-on installation with your assistance–so learn by doing, following a short classroom session on design principles and best materials.Drip also saves water, makes for healthier plants and fewer weeds, and is easily automated. Learn why drip irrigation works so w

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR: Everybody’s got an Urgent Garden Question (or 20!). What better place to ask them than in person at one of my upcoming events? The car and I start another run starting tomorrow morning with an appearance at my favorite plant sale, Trade Secrets in Sharon, Connecticut, before we head north for Manchester Center, Vermont, for an evening lecture (whoosh)! And there many other stops in the weeks ahead, too—including a much-overdue one at the historic home of The Fabulous Beekman Boys and their adorable goats:Saturday, May 14, 9-11 AM: Garden Q&A’s and book signing at Trade Secrets, Sharon, CT.

Full lecture and class descriptions below, along with ticket ordering for succulent events:11 am lecture: ‘succulent love’PRACTICALLY carefree, with low water needs and available in amazing forms in nuanced colors that mix and match beautifully…that’s why succulents have been the rage in horticulture in recent years.In this visually rich talk, longtime collector, nursery owner and garden designer Katherine Tracey will share some of her favorite ways of using both hardy and tender succulents in Northeastern gardens, including using them as ingredients in mixed planters, vertical gardens and lately as the subject of long-lasting cut material for

Fourth annual Moth Night, part of National Moth Week, in Taconic State Park, led by expert entomologists (co-hosted with Friends of Taconic State Park), 7 PM onward; ticket info.Saturday August 19: Open Day and Native Plant Talks10-4 Garden Conservancy Open Day at my garden, plus plant sale with Broken Arrow Nursery11 AM native plant lecture by Claudia West of

FEBRUARYMonday, February 13, 11:30 AM: lecture for Farmington Garden Club Founders’ Fund Celebration meeting, at Hill-Stead Museum Makeshift Theater, 35 Mountain Road, Farmington, CT; free admission.Saturday, February 25, 1 PM: lecture for Germantown Public Library, Germantown, NY, at 31 Palatine Park Road.MARCHThursday, March 1, 9:30 AM: lecture for Pleasantville Garden Club, in the social hall at Presbyterian Church, 400 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY.We

GOODREADS IS LIKE a giant online book club that never sleeps. It’s amazing, and it’s free; a great place to get tips from other keen readers on books to look out for, according to your interests, and to “talk” to authors. Katrina Kenison (author most recently of “Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment”) and I will be there Monday February 25 for an open forum, to answer your questions about our new (or older) books, about writing, or about whatever you feel like asking about.In our in-person events recently, the topics have ranged from finding midlife friendship, to raising adolescent boys (or unruly plants), to recipes we’ve swapped and books we’ve both read, to our writing “process” (I pace, she sits still)—no kidding, that wide a range, and more. Fun! So come share whatever’s on your mind. Won’t you sign up and join us?the in-person eventsSaturday, February 23, afternoon, 2 PM: Gardening-and-more conversation and reading

I need your help, in the form of a short survey (link at the bottom of this story), to decide if it’s a good idea, and what format it might take. The survey probably won’t take you more than 5 minutes to complete.Background: For more than 20 years, I’ve lectured to garden audiences, and also hosted Garden Conservancy Open Days at my own garden in the Hudson Valley of New York (as I will again).In 2016, in response to visitors’ requests requesting more time to chat and ask questions than is possible at the big tours, I added smaller, more personal half-day

SAVE THE DATES! I’m putting the finishing touches on my 2018 workshop and tour calendar in Copake Falls, NY. Note: No tickets or reservations are required for May 5 and Aug. 18 garden Open Days, but for all the other events and also for “extras” like talks and workshops on those Open Days, reservations are required.

Beloved Broken Arrow Nursery will hold a plant sale in my driveway, including the chance to pre-order for pickup on Saturday the 7th at my place. Other garden- and nature-related headliners: Rebecca McMackin, the celebrated ecological landscape designer who has led the creation of Brooklyn Bridge Park (giving a pollinator-garden talk that is not to be missed); Chris Roddick, longtime head arborist at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (with a tree walk); and Annie Novak of New York Botanical Garden’s Edible Academy (wi

All the latest garden news and the best UK garden events to look out for in July.

Here at my Copake Falls garden all day with a truckload of irresistible botanical goodies will be Broken Arrow Nursery. They will be accepting advance phone orders, too, between now and Wednesday, May 31, if there is something special you simply must have. Their website; phone is (203) 288-1026.All ticket sales from my garden will be donated to two local nonprofits I love: the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program in nearby Ghent, N.Y., and Turtle Tree Seed in Copake.And there’s much more:Those of you who r

The Appeal of Small Events RHS Hyde Hall has recently held a plant fair which was a pleasure to visit. It was more on the scale of Courson (outside Paris) than some of the major events that the RHS runs each year.