 |
HOME | SHOP | NEWS | BLOG | ||
| Cultivating sanctuary in nature, environmental stewardship and the legacy of southern horticulture. | ||||||
|
|
Adult Classes
Tai Chi with Rob Bruce at the Lawrence House
Five Tuesdays, January 24 - February 21 and/or March 6 - April 3 10 - 11:30 am Cost: $60 per 5-week session ($15 drop-in)
Tai Chi has been practiced for centuries in China to improve physical health, reduce stress, and promote vitality. While it incorporates martial arts movements, Tai Chi is more commonly practiced today as a moving meditation for health benefits. Tai Chi movements gently massage the body, encourage the proper function of the organs, promote muscle tone, increase blood and lymph flow, and develop joint flexibility. Regular practice clears the mind and can reduce stress, providing a sense of being centered and inner peace.
Rob Bruce first began his study of chi practices in 1996 with classes in basic chi gong exercises and the comprehensive Eight Treasures chi gong practice introduced to the west by Master Hua-Ching Ni. He received his certification as a Golden Flower Instructor in March 2004 and has taught classes in the Golden Flower tai chi form at various locations in the Charlotte area since the fall of 2004.
Exploring Watercolor in the Lawrence Garden with Janis Schneider at the Lawrence House
Six Thursdays: January 19 - February 23 and/or March 1 - April 5 from 1 to 3:30 pm Cost: $150 (non-members $155)
Using the garden as inspiration, explore color, paint, brushes and paper in an expressive and experimental way to gain confidence in and knowledge of the medium. Students can work in any way they desire, from tight to loose and from realistic to abstract.
Janis has been drawing and painting ever since she could hold a pencil and brush. She has studied at Bennington College, received a B.A. in Fine Art from Queens College (CUNY), Botanical Painting at the Horticultural Society in NYC and privately with the past president of the American Society of Botanical Artists (ASBA). Like many botanical artists, she has been a textile designer for many years and has worked as a designer for various apparel and home furnishings companies. Her designs have sold nationally in major department stores and upscale catalogues. She has exhibited at the National Academy of Design in NYC and currently teaches at CPCC in Charlotte and at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, NC.
Seven Strategies for Garden Success with Donna Williamson
Thursday, January 26 9:30 am Cost: $15 (non-members: $20)
Gardeners often learn to grow pretty plants well and make nice color combinations but still wonder why their gardens do not come together. Books filled with garden eye-candy compound the problem. Choosing from hundreds of available plants can lead to more confusion and the famous impulse purchases. The key to a beautiful and coherent garden is discerning, shaping, and sustaining the intention for the space. Seven strategies for sorting out the real issues make this a simpler process. Once intention lights the way, the garden can come together with sensibility and artistry.
Donna Williamson is a master gardener, garden designer, gardening coach, and owner of Donna Williamson Fine Gardening. She has taught gardening and design classes at the State Arboretum of Virginia, Oatlands in Leesburg, and Shenandoah University. The founder and editor of Grandiflora Mid-Atlantic Gardening magazine, Williamson writes on gardening topics for publications including the Christian Science Monitor and Blue Ridge Leader. Her book, The Virginia Gardener’s Companion: An Insider’s Guide to Low-Maintenance Gardening in Virginia, will be available at Wing Haven.
Go Green with Moss with Annie Martin
Lecture: Tuesday, January 31 9:30 am Cost: $15 (non-members: $20)
Workshop: Tuesday, January 31 1 pm at the Lawrence House Cost: $25 (non-members: $30) The workshop is full!
Eco-friendly mosses provide year-round “green” in the landscape, and the environmental benefits parallel their incredible beauty. Come learn about these amazing miniature plants from a moss gardening expert. Mossin’ Annie creates marvelous moss landscapes, green roofs and moss lawns that emphasize sustainability and beauty.
The morning lecture includes a PowerPoint presentation that will address how to feature bryophytes in YOUR garden; successful moss gardening techniques; blending native plants, mosses, lichens; bryophyte identification; and the environmental benefits of mosses in the landscape. Annie will bring moss specimens for close inspection.
The afternoon workshop offers a unique “hands-on” opportunity to make your own moss dish garden to take home. All mosses, native plants and containers included. Enrollment limited and pre-registration is required.
Annie Martin, owner of Mountain Moss Enterprises, is an environmental moss artist and sustainable landscape designer. A native of western North Carolina, her childhood fascination with mosses has grown into a professional commitment to promote and design moss gardens. She encourages responsible land stewardship and the rescue of indigenous mosses. At her Mossery, she is cultivating mosses and pre-vegetated moss mats for moss lawns and green roofs. Her award-winning moss dish gardens and “moss-as-art” creations represent a microcosm of the horticultural options and practical landscape solutions. Her articles on moss gardening techniques have appeared in Carolina Home and Garden, The Carolina Gardener, WNC Magazine, Laurel of Asheville, and VERVE magazines.
with Colleen McDaniel
Tuesday, January 31 7:30 pm Cost: $10 (non-members: $15)
Your first tomato of the season may be months away, but there’s plenty to keep you busy in the vegetable garden. Learn how to take advantage of the cool, damp weather to extend your growing season. Colleen will share some of her tricks to help you get more out of your garden during these cool months. Topics will include starting seeds indoors and row cover protection as well as high tunnel technology.
Colleen McDaniel has been a landscape designer and contractor for 18 years. For the last 3 years she has focused on organic vegetable production. Her residential plans often include the use of edibles, herbs and natives in the landscape. She owns and operates The Inspired Garden, Inc., a landscape design and installation company, and holds her NC General Contractors License and certification as a NC Landscape contractor.
with Dick and Judith Knott Tyler
Thursday, February 2 9:30 am Cost: $15 (non-members: $20) This class is full!!! Staying out of the sun can be good for you and your garden! Join Dick and Judith Knott Tyler for a look at their own shady garden in which they focus on plantings for year-round interest—with the majority of flowering in the months between February and June. During the summer heat, the focal points are textures in various shades of green. The program will feature some of their favorite plants—both native and non—and, of course, many of their favorites are hellebores. Since the Tylers garden in a very hot, humid, deer ridden area that is frequently in drought conditions (sound familiar?), their plant choices must tolerate a great deal of abuse. Their slides will also illustrate the progression of the garden over the years and their basic no frills approach to garden care. Dick and Judith Knott Tyler have owned and operated Pine Knot Farms since 1982. Their gardens are located in an eastern mixed deciduous forest and, as a result, are filled with plants that thrive in shade. Hellebores soon became a focus and after a few years the collection became an obsession. The Tylers devote each winter to travel and study of the genus, and their breeding work with the double forms has sparked national interest. Judith is the author, with C. Coleston Burrell, of the new Timber Press publication entitled Hellebores; A Comprehensive Guide which features many of Dick's remarkable photographs. Their gardens at Pine Knot Farms have been featured in Southern Living, Virginia Gardener, Virginia Living, Carolina Gardener, Heritage and Washingtonian magazines, numerous newspaper articles and on Martha Stewart's television program and in her magazine.
Beekeeping Basics with Richard Flanagan
Saturday, February 4 10:30 am Cost: Free (non-members: $5) Please pre-register.
If you’ve ever entertained the notion of maintaining a honey bee colony in your backyard, join Richard Flanagan for an informative program on beekeeping. Richard will bring all the equipment necessary for keeping bees and, if weather permits, he’ll have real bees in an observation hive for viewing.
Richard Flanagan has been keeping bees in his backyard for over 10 years and also helps in the removal of bees from places that they are unwanted—homes, trees, apartment buildings, etc. He is an active member of the Mecklenburg County Beekeepers Association and is currently pursuing his Master Beekeepers Certification from the NC State Beekeepers Association.
A Japanese Maple Primer with Norm Mittleider
Tuesday, February 7 9:30 am to 12 noon Cost: $30 (non-members: $35) This class is full!
This class will cover many important topics and shed light on poor gardening practices that, when corrected, are sure to result in a healthier, more beautiful Japanese maple. Norm will address the proper selection, planting and care of Japanese maples. He’ll also cover pruning basics, with an emphasis on an aesthetic approach. Finally, he’ll discuss the identification of common problems and the methods used for correcting them. Norm Mittleider received his certification as an Aesthetic Pruner from Merrit College in Oakland, CA and now lives in the Atlanta metro area. He specializes in pruning Japanese maples and specimen conifers. He teaches classes on the subject of Japanese maples at the Atlanta Botanical Garden (ABG). Norm also volunteers at the ABG and at other local public gardens helping with the proper care of their Japanese maples.
Sex in the Garden with Larry Mellichamp
Tuesday, February 7 7:30 pm Cost: $10 (non-members $15)
While you are concerned with blossoms opening, seeds germinating, caterpillars gnawing and funguses decomposing, other awesome activities are going on right under your nose in the garden. Flowers are carrying on strange-but-natural sex acts – with the aid of various insects and hummingbirds. The animals are flying from flower to flower, often in a frantic mode, scrambling inside the petals, or just sticking their noses in, and getting all covered with pollen – completing the all-important act of cross-pollination. Sometimes during their acts the animals mate with one another, sometimes they bite holes in the flowers, and sometimes they fall asleep and spend the night. Every once in a while you witness a moment of ecstasy. Should you be watching all this, or minding your own business? Actually, the plants and animals are helping each other to reproduce, but the flowers are manipulating the pollinators more than you might suspect. Here you will learn more about why flowers look and behave the way they do and why pollinating animals make the choices they do – to keep the cycle of life going strong.
Dr. Larry Mellichamp is a Professor of Botany at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he teaches courses on botany and horticulture and is also director of the UNCCharlotte Botanical Gardens, with 10 acres of outdoor gardens containing natives and exotics, and two greenhouses displaying the wonders of the world’s diverse flora. He speaks on such topics as pollination biology, bog gardening, winter gardening, and landscaping with native plants. Dr. Mellichamp did his botanical graduate work at the University of Michigan and has traveled and collected plants in Mexico, Costa Rica, Borneo, Hawaii, South Africa, China and Australia. He is the 2003 recipient of the Thomas Roland Medal of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. He is co-author of the textbook Practical Botany (1983) and the recent books The Winter Garden (1997, with Peter Loewer) and Wildflowers of the Western Great Lakes Region (1999, with Fred Case and Jim Wells) and Bizarre Botanicals (2010 with Paula Gross.).
A Centerpiece...from the Grocery Store! with Jeffrey Drum & Andrea Sprott at the Lawrence House
Thursday, February 9 9:30 am to 12 noon Cost: $35 (non-members: $40) This class is full! Did you ever wish you might pick up a few flowers at the grocery store, add a few things from your own garden and create an arrangement suitable for the dining room table or entry hall? Let Jeff and Andrea show you how! This workshop will cover mechanics for various types of containers, choosing healthy, fresh flowers, and the best plants for our area to complement your ‘store-bought’ bouquet. Winter will be in full swing so come ready to learn and have a great time while you’re at it! Workshop fee includes materials…but don’t forget to bring your own clippers!
Jeffrey Drum is Wing Haven's Garden Curator. With over 25 years of experience, Jeff has worked in some of Charlotte's finest gardens.
Andrea Sprott is our Lawrence Garden Associate. An avid gardener and plant collector, Andrea enjoys sharing her passion and expertise with others.
Rain Gardening in the South with Helen Kraus
Friday, February 10 9:30 am Cost: $15 (non-members: $20)
Home landscapes, even those tended by great gardeners, can be a major source of water pollution. Rain gardens are great ways to clean up pollution generated by storm water. They are also beautiful and easy to install. During her talk, Helen will show you why every home should have a rain garden in the landscape and how to build and plant a beautiful one. She’ll also bring along copies of her book Rain Gardening in the South to sell.
Helen Kraus earned her BS, MS and PhD from North Carolina State University where she currently teaches. Although she has taught a variety of classes including Nursery Management and Trees and Grounds Management, her favorite teaching subject is the Principles of Horticulture which includes a focus on environmentally responsible gardening practices.
Conifers for the Carolina Piedmont with Bruce Appledoorn
Tuesday, February 14 9:30 am Cost: $15 (non-members: $20)
Join Bruce Appledoorn for an entertaining and educational look at modern conifers well-suited to our southern gardens. As a designer, Bruce strives to use conifers—and appropriate companion plants—to create unique, colorful and harmonious landscape designs.
Bruce Appeldoorn is a lifelong nurseryman and the owner/operator of Appeldoorn Landscape Nursery. This small and selective nursery produces a wide range of intermediate and small-scale woody ornamental plants for gardens and residential landscapes and features over 400 varieties of conifers in its extensive catalog. The nursery produces almost all of its own stock from cuttings, grafts and seedlings that are drawn from parent plants growing at some of the finest personal and botanical gardens and arboreta in the Southeastern US. Mr. Appeldoorn has been an active supporter of the American Conifer Society since 1987. He served two terms as SE Regional President during the late 1990’s and was presented with their ‘Award of Merit’ in October 2011.
Reasons & Seasons for Proper Pruning with Jeffrey Drum at the Lawrence House
Saturday, February 18 10 am - 2 pm Cost: $55 (non-members: $60) This workshop is full! Contrary to popular practice, pruning techniques are not instinctive. Join Jeffrey Drum for an in-depth pruning workshop in the Lawrence Garden. Learn the reasons for pruning—beautification, renovation—as well as the correct time of year to prune. Proper techniques and tools for pruning shrubs and small ornamental trees—nandinas, mahonias, camellias, roses, Japanese maples, boxwood, hollies and hydrangeas—will be addressed. Participants will have the opportunity to work with Jeff as he makes pruning decisions in the garden. Jeff will be assisted by Andrea Sprott—Wing Haven’s Lawrence Garden Associate. Enrollment limited to 15 participants.
Jeffrey Drum is Wing Haven’s Garden Curator. With over 25 years of experience, Jeff has worked in many of the finest gardens in Charlotte.
Gardener's Latin with Ann L. Armstrong
Thursday, February 23 9:30 am Cost: $10 (non-members: $15)
Did you ever pick up a seed package or gardening book and feel at a loss? Knowing the Latin scientific name is the most accurate way to describe a particular plant. While the same plant may have different common names in different parts of the country, taxonomists have labored long and hard to make sure that a specific Latin name identifies only one single species of plant and that there can be no confusion with another plant.
Ann L. Armstrong is a well known Charlotte garden writer, lecturer and consultant. A master gardener whose garden has been featured on many tours as well as in several books and magazines, Ann wrote an in-depth garden column for many years for the Charlotte Leader, the Wing Haven Garden Journal, a garden planner and maintenance calendar, and edited Beautiful at all Seasons, a collection of Elizabeth Lawrence’s gardening columns for Duke University Press.
Lessons Learned from a Poet's Garden with Jane Baber White
Friday, February 24 9:30 am Cost: $10 (non-members: $15)
Landscape gardener Jane Baber White never knew Harlem Renaissance poet Anne Spencer. They both lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, a conservative southern town, where they were divided by more than neighborhoods and their ages during the mid-1900s. In 1983, eight years after Anne’s death at age 93, Jane visited the overgrown and deteriorated garden Anne had lovingly tended for 50 years. Instantly she felt connected to Anne through the unspoken language of the earth and her garden. Jane enlisted the aid of her small-town garden club, Hillside, and together with community friends, they saved the garden—not only once, but twice during a twenty-eight-year period. There are many lessons to be learned in the process of saving and restoring an historic site and garden and, intermingled with the physical process of restoring the property, is the fascinating story of new and meaningful personal relationships crossing traditional boundaries through the language of poetry and of the earth. This story is enriched by a remarkable amount of documentation in photographs, time sheets, and notes on scraps of paper.
Jane Baber White is a lifelong resident of Lynchburg, Virginia, with a passion for gardens and historic sites. Always as a volunteer, she has been responsible for a number of restoration projects, and has received local, state, and national recognition for her work at the Old City Cemetery where she was director for twenty-seven years, and for the Spencer garden, her first and now current love. She is the author of Once Upon a Time. . . A Cemetery Story, published in 2009, and The Book of Attributes for the Living Horticultural Collections of the Old City Cemetery Museums and Arboretum, Lynchburg, Virginia, 2008. Copies of Lessons Learned from a Poet’s Garden will be available at the lecture.
Terrarium Workshop with Wan Marsh at the Lawrence Garden
Friday, February 24 10 am Cost: $55 (non-members: $60) This class is full!
Come learn how to create your own miniature green world! The class will include a short introduction to the history of terrariums as well as instruction on design aesthetics, successful planting, care and maintenance. You’ll leave with your own terrarium and the knowledge to create many more! Fee includes glass vessel, soil layering components and plants. (Enrollment limited to 12)
Wan Marsh is an artist and Landscape Designer. An avid gardener, Wan has been a Master Gardener for many years and served as President in 2008. Wan’s garden was featured on the Wing Haven tour in 2005, and she has also worked as a volunteer in the Elizabeth Lawrence garden. As an ardent environmentalist she believes we all have a responsibility to recycle, repurpose and reuse.
Morning in the Garden with Ann L. Armstrong, Jeffrey Drum & Andrea Sprott at the Lawrence Garden
Tuesday, February 28 9:30 am - 12 noon Cost: $60 (non-members: $55)
Spend a winter morning in the Lawrence Garden with Ann Armstrong, Jeff Drum and Andrea Sprott. There’s much to see and do in the garden as winter makes way for a spectacular spring. We’ll use the garden as a classroom to illustrate the top performers in the autumn garden as well as the maintenance tasks that should be tackled during this busy time of the gardening year. The intimate workshop format and limited enrollment offer a unique opportunity to learn the tricks of the trade from the experts! (Enrollment limited to 15.)
Ann L. Armstrong is a well known Charlotte garden writer, lecturer and consultant. A master gardener whose garden has been featured on many tours, in several books and magazines, Ann wrote an in-depth garden column for many years for the Charlotte Leader, as well as the Wing Haven Garden Journal, a garden planner and maintenance calendar and edited Beautiful at all Seasons, a collection of Elizabeth Lawrence’s gardening columns for Duke University Press. Jeffrey Drum is Wing Haven's Garden Curator. With over 25 years of experience, Jeff has worked in some of Charlotte's finest gardens. Andrea Sprott is our Lawrence Garden Associate. An avid gardener and plant collector, Andrea enjoys sharing her passion and expertise with others.
Southern Garden to Table - Garden Living at its Finest with James Farmer
Thursday, March 1 9:30 am - 12 noon Cost: $10 (non-members: $15)
Growing up in the Deep South, the term “garden to table” or “farm to table” was not the chic phrase it is today. It was simply the way we lived—we grew most of our food or at least knew who did. Today’s garden to table movement brings the cherished notes of yesteryear – dining with family, knowing your food’s origin, and time well spent at the table – to the dizzying schedules of today; whereupon, a modern luxury now appears, gracing our days and events with not only food from our gardens but décor and the lifestyle to embrace the garden as pantry, florist, and even venue.
This talk is a guide down the garden path to the garden lifestyle – Southern-style garden living – for the garden to table genre is more than just food!
James Farmer's Georgia upbringing has steeped him in a bath of all things Southern, a culture heavily influenced by gardening and the land. Hailing from the peach-laden fields and muddy rivers of Middle Georgia, James Farmer brings a unique blend of passion to cooking, gardening, design and architecture. James is a regular contributor for Southern Living Magazine and his first book, A Time to Plant, which takes you from gardening to entertaining, will be available at Wing Haven at his lecture.
Chicks in the City with Dia and Paul Steiger
Saturday, March 3 10:30 am Cost: Free (non-members: $5) Please pre-register!
Raising your own food can be a healthier, greener way to eat. …and now folks are even starting to raise chickens right here in Charlotte! If you’re interested in starting your own urban flock, you’ll need to acquaint yourself with the local ordinances as well as make sure that you have a safe home for the ladies. Dia and Paul will provide an overview of our city laws regarding backyard flocks as well as the basics of feeding and housing chickens in an urban setting.
Dia and Paul Steiger recently welcomed 3 chickens into their backyard.
Backyard Composting with Mary Stauble
Saturday, March 10 10:30 am Cost: Free (non-members: $5) Please pre-register!
Learn the basics of home composting. It’s easy and fun! Reduce yard waste and improve your soil by learning to turn your leaves and kitchen scraps into compost, the gardener’s black gold. This session will answer your questions about where to put your compost bin, what can go in it, how to manage it and what to do with finished compost. The key to a great garden starts with the soil and compost is a wonderful soil builder. Get started composting today!
Mary Stauble is an environmental educator and consultant living in Charlotte. Her background includes degrees in biology, environmental studies, a science teaching credential and a Masters in education. A former science teacher, Master Gardener and Master Composter; she taught composting classes for Mecklenburg County for over eight years. She has worked for the Mecklenburg Soil and Water Conservation District and with the Horticulture program at Central Piedmont Community College.
One Writer's Garden: Eudora Welty's Home Place with Susan Haltom
Thursday, March 15 9:30 am Cost: $10 (non-members: $15)
Even in her earliest short stories, the writer Eudora Welty wove images of southern flora and gardens into her writing, yet few outside her personal circle knew that they originated in her own passionate connection to the home garden in Jackson, Mississippi, designed by her mother. Near the end of her life, Welty recounted her memories of the lost garden to Susan Haltom, a local garden designer, who helped bring it back. When Welty died in 2001, a restoration of the garden was well underway—and with it, the untold story of the garden’s place in the writer’s artistic life. Woven throughout this fascinating story are passages from Welty’s unpublished writing as well as excerpts from her personal letters, including those from her friend Elizabeth Lawrence.
The two women met in the late 1930’s and quickly discovered their shared sense of humor and passion for gardening. Both were single, educated, and well-traveled, and both also lived at home, caring for their aging mothers. When Welty put Lawrence on the mailing list for the Mississippi Market Bulletin, Lawrence was able to gather both plants and stories, from which was drawn Gardening for Love: The Market Bulletins. Copies of One Writer’s Garden will be available at the lecture. Susan Haltom is a garden designer and preservation and maintenance coordinator of the Eudora Welty garden. She has published in Mississippi Magazine, Old House Journal, and Magnolia, the journal of the Southern Garden History Society.
The Fledgling Experience with Harry Schmeider
Saturday, April 28 10:30 am Cost: Free (non-members: $5) Please pre-register!
Join Harry Schmeider for an introduction to the splendor of bluebirds! He’ll discuss their history, courtship, nest site selection, egg laying, brooding right up to fledging, and what happens after they have fledged. He’ll show different nest boxes and how you can attract bluebirds to your backyard. Harry will also talk about the other cavity nesters that will use a bluebird box. Learn about their food sources, predators and the problems they encounter with house sparrows, starlings, and cats. He’ll offer tips on how to solve these problems. You are assured to find Harry’s program fun and educational. His goal is for us to gain a greater understanding and compassion for these birds and leave as enthusiastic Ambassadors for the Bluebirds.
Harry Schmeider is President of the Bluebird Society of Pennsylvania and actively helps as many nest cavity birds as possible. As a citizen scientist focused on birds, he enjoys sharing blue birding and the experience of being a good landlord to these wonderful birds.
|
EVENTS CALENDAR
|
