Garden enthusiasts from across the region will be enthralled with outstanding garden presentations from some of the top names in gardening as we take the day to explore the not-so-hidden obsessions of gardeners everywhere.
Joseph Tychonievich, who some of you may remember from our 2014 Garden Symposium, where his “bee dance” got everyone humming, is a life-long lover of plants and gardening. He got his degree in horticulture from Ohio State University and went on to work for specialty rare plant nurseries in Japan and Michigan. Joseph is the author of several books, including “The Complete Guide to Gardeners: The Plant Obsessed and How to Deal With Them,” “The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food: Step-by-Step Vegetable Gardening for Everyone” and "Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style.” He is a regular contributor to gardening magazines like “Fine Gardening,” and is the editor of the North American Rock Garden Society quarterly journal. He lives and gardens in South Bend, Ind., with his husband, two cats, a dog, and a truly excessive number of plants. Joseph returns to Kansas City for two programs. The first, “The Complete Guide to Gardeners: The Plant Obsessed and How to Deal with Them,” takes us on a humorous look at a condition many of us suffer from. Do you yell at deer, rabbits or squirrels? Have you spent hours shopping at the nursery when your garden is overflowing with plants and your yet-to-be-planted plant collection is starting to look like a nursery itself? If this sounds like you, or someone you know (wink, wink), you will laugh in recognition in this talk, and learn about important issues like Hosta Overdose Syndrome and Seasonal Seed Shopping Disorder. Joseph’s second program will be “Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style.” Inspired by the tiny plants and dramatic, rocky landscapes found on mountain tops, rock gardening uses a range of unusual, small plants in combination with beautiful stones to create miniaturized landscapes. This approach to gardening is water-wise, perfect for containers, small gardens, and for gardeners interested in exploring a whole new group of beautiful plants. In this talk Joseph will share beautiful images of rock gardens to get you inspired, the basic principles of creating rock gardens, and an introduction to some of the most beautiful and easy-to-grow rock garden plants to get you started.
Ed Lyon, director of Reiman Gardens on the Iowa State University campus in Ames, Iowa, and author of “Growing the Midwest Garden,” joins us to present two presentations. In Ed’s first program, he will be discussing the very important and often overlooked bedrock of gardening: our garden soil. In his talk “Midwest Garden Soils,” we will learn what our soils are made of, how to improve them, and how to care for them just as we would do for the plants we grow in them. After all, how can we expect to our gardens to be big, bold and beautiful if we don’t provide them a great place to grow from? In the second program, Ed will help us make sense of the affliction of the plant obsessed among us of trying to make a garden filled with one of these and one of those appear to be a designed garden. In his talk “Garden Design from a Plant Collector’s Point of View,” he will share with us the design principles and practices that speak to the plant collector in all us.
Chris Fehlhaber, assistant horticulturist at Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, Pa., plans to present two presentations. Chris, oversees cut flowers at Chanticleer and hails from Wisconsin. He's influenced by Roy Diblik, because of his personal approach toward plants. Roy is himself a 2012 Garden Symposium alumnus. Chris’s goal is to raise the public’s consciousness and appreciation of enriching, progressive horticulture. He believes we may all lead better lives by making the world a more beautiful place. Chris holds degrees in landscape architecture-natural resources and environmental studies from the University of Wisconsin. Chris’s first program, “A Season of Inspiration: The Year at Chanticleer,” is sure to inspire with photos of the ever-impressive gardens at Chanticleer. We know you will come away from this talk with new plant selections, design elements and other ideas for even the most jaded of the plant obsessed among us. In his second program, Chris will us striving to have a truly four-season landscape, when he presents, “Creating Year-round Beauty in the Garden.”
The doors open at 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 25, for the 2023 Kansas City Garden Symposium hosted in Arrupe Hall on the campus of Rockhurst University, 54th Street and Troost entrance in Kansas City, MO 64110. Announcements begin at 8:15 a.m. with the last program to end by 4:15 p.m. All six presentations and an on-campus lunch along with speaker handouts and our signature, Garden Symposium bag are included in the ticket price of $99, valid through March 1.