Berkshire Botanical Garden is offering an online event that will get your inner-gardener ready to learn.

Berkshire Botanical Garden’s 5th annual Rooted in Place Ecological Gardening Symposium invites attendees to create a new, environmentally sensitive vision by exploring the connection between the surrounding landscape and the home.

The symposium is being held over the course of two days, November 15th, and November 22nd, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The symposium features four informative sessions offered live through Zoom followed by question and answer periods. Expert presenters will examine the intersection of the wild and cultivated landscape while exploring ecosystem services offered by native plantings, including the role they play in backyard gardens. Recordings of the lectures will be accessible to registered attendees until January 1st, 2021.

Conference presenters include nationally sought-after speaker Heather Holm, author of Pollinators of Native Plants, 2014, and Bees, 2017, which won six book awards including the 2018 American Horticultural Society Book Award, will present What's the Buzz About Native Bees, exploring the nesting habitat, life cycle, pollen collection, brood rearing, and general characteristics of common genera of native bees occurring in the Midwestern, Eastern United States, and southern Canada.

Ulrich “Uli” Lorimer, Director of Horticulture at Native Plant Trust and previously of Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Native Flora Garden, Wave Hill in the Bronx and the US Botanic Garden will speak on the topic, What I have Learned from Observing Plants in Nature, engaging gardeners and horticulturists to turn outdoor hikes into inspiring learning experiences, and exploring how observations made from nature can help expand plant choices, inform design decisions and result in gardens that support biodiversity, aesthetics and ecosystem function.

Dr. Desiree Narango, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and current David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow, will present Native Plants in Gardening Practices, based on her research on how native plants and gardening practices influence birds, bees, butterflies and moths in residential yards. The talk will also address the specialized relationships between native plants and insects, why insects matter to birds, and steps individuals can take to improve habitat for wildlife at home.

A panel will also discuss, Incorporating Native Plantings Into Traditional Landscape Design. The Panel will include Bridghe McCracken, Founder of Helia Land Design and chief landscape designer for Project Native; Drew Monthie, garden designer, consultant and teacher of horticulture, botany, ethnobotany and ecology; and Rebekah Lamphere, founder of Hartland Designs, Inc.

Advance registration at Berkshire Botanical Garden’s website is required for symposium attendance: https://www.berkshirebotanical.org/events/rooted-place-online-annual-ecological-gardening-symposium. Scholarships, student discounts and member discounts are available.

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