Hamamelis x intermedia 'Diane'
February is the month for garden seminars and I attended two last week that were top notch.
Douglas Tallamy, Prof. of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the U. of Delaware, spoke at the venerable Piedmont Landscape Assn.’s annual gathering in Charlottesville. He blew away the 650+ audience (ensconced in the splendor of the ornate Paramount Theatre) with his message of conserving the insect-bird-mammal chain that sustains us all. Spontaneous standing O at 10:30 in the morning.
Bottom line: plant oaks. At the top of his list, they sustain 534 different kinds of butterfly larvae. His beautiful photos of caterpillars alone were worth the price of admission.
I am avidly looking for his Bringing Nature Home (2007) which my friend, Hans, who tends the presidential gardens at RIT, says changed his life.
Three days later I encountered Eliot Coleman at UVA. Spritely author of Four Season Harvest and spouse of garden writer Barbara Damrosch, he spoke to a rapt audience of students and local gardener/foodies who soaked up his message of sustainable use of the land.
There is a yearning out there for making peace with this world.
Let us all blunder on.
Beech Watch Begins 2/16/11