Last Saturday the Northern Neck Master Gardeners hosted the 31st annual Gardening in the Northern Neck Seminar. Each year at the end of March the event brings together speakers from the world of horticulture as well as garden exhibitors offering a wide spectrum of plants and garden items. The theme of this year’s seminar was “Gardeners: Caretakers of the Environment.”
Dan Benarcik, who has been for the past quarter of a century the horticulturist at the Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pa., spoke on “the 25 plants he could not, and would not, garden without.” He emphasized the importance of native plants in keeping a sound environmental balance in one’s garden. He says that the most interesting aspect of gardening for him is the people-plant relationship.
Alyssa Ford Morel, a fellow master gardener from Northern Virginia, spoke about making one’s garden hospitable to pollinators and other visitors by selecting the correct plants that attract them, thereby creating a symbiotic relationship between the gardener and the plantings. A native of California, she is a graduate of Pacific Union College, the campus of which is considered to be one of the most beautiful of American university academic institutions, given its extensive plantings. She has said that the campus environment was instrumental in leading her down “the garden path.”
In her talk, she concentrated on fireflies, ladybugs and pollinators, focusing on the work they do to make for a great garden experience. We often overlook the contributions of beneficial insects toward having a sustainable garden. Ladybugs in particular serve a vital purpose by eating the aphids that do great damage to our vegetables and flowers. Happily, gone are the days when all bugs were seen as being bad.
The third speaker, well-known to all Virginia gardeners, was Peggy Singlemann, the host of the PBS television program, “Virginia Home Grown” in which she has been involved since its inception. Peggy spent 38 years at Maymont, the 100-acre Richmond city park and preserve, retiring three years ago as the park director. She spoke about connecting the garden to our environment.
At Maymont, Peggy expanded the garden experience for visitors, focusing on sustainability. She is a strong proponent of not using chemically treated materials in garden design and construction, advocating for natural approaches. She too is concerned with gardens being hospitable to visitors, both animal and human alike. On her television program, she brings together gardeners and naturalists from all across the Commonwealth to explain and educate fellow gardeners about the best practices to follow in our gardens.
The audience asked all three speakers good questions and they got good answers. The first question to Peggy was, “How do you get rid of English ivy.” Short of digging it up, which is possible inasmuch as the roots are not deep, a good natural way to attack it is to let goats eat it.
Fighting it is a perennial problem for many gardeners and landscapers.
The legendary adage that a goat will eat anything, I found to be true with respect to the pet goats I have had over the years, but I never tried turning them loose on our ivy beds. English ivy is probably the most invasive foreign plant material we encounter here in Virginia. In second place, personally I would put nandina, a pretty plant that spreads wildly and produces beautiful red berries that are toxic to birds.
Fifty years ago, most local gardeners were not apprised of the problems and dangers incumbent upon them by the threats posed by invasive species. Today, with better means of identifying the unwanted plants and pests, we can be more responsible in combatting them, whether on land or in the water.
The three speakers at this year’s seminar sent the large audience home with great information and a renewed will to be good stewards of the environment, all the while enjoying America’s most extensive hobby of gardening.
