Seed Exchange 2016 Speakers Announced

Here are the speakers for the upcoming Washington Gardener Seed Exchanges 2016. Seed Exchange attendees trade seeds, exchange planting tips, hear expert speakers, and collect goody bags full of gardening treats. For more information on the exchanges and how to register, go here.

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Saturday, January 30 at Brookside Gardens, MD

"Small Gardens – Big Harvests"

 Even if you have a large plot of land, there are several reasons to grow your veggies using a small-space, high-intensive gardening method: less work and maintenance, no tilling, less water use, easier to protect from weather, pests and critters, extended growing seasons, etc. We will explore Square Foot Gardening, squash arches, container gardening, Back to Eden gardening, Hügelkultur, table top gardening and more.

Speaker: Kim Roman is a Square Foot Gardening Certified Instructor who was trained by SFG creator, Mel Bartholomew. She currently serves as the SFG Foundation’s Public Relations Director and is collaborating with Mel to co-author two children’s versions of his book. In addition, Kim loves to teach different methods of small-space, organic vegetable gardening and works with schools, churches, homeless shelters, nursing homes, etc. to help them plan and implement their garden projects. She offers various vegetable gardening classes, and, in addition to teaching in the Glen Burnie area, would travel to your location. Contact:sfgkimroman@yahoo.com or find her on Facebook at Square Foot Gardening 4 U. 

AND

 
 “Winter Sowing:  Following Mother Nature’s Way to Get a Head Start on your spring and Summer Garden”

This presentation will focus primarily on winter sowing basics and techniques, benefits of winter sowing and some basic do’s and don’ts of winter sowing. It will provide in-depth information on which seeds are the best candidates for winter sowing and why some are not the best choices. 

Speaker: Linda L. Jones, owner, Elements of Nature – ElementsofNatureUSA.com, Clinton, MD; Lindajones20735@gmail.com or Linda@elementsofnatureUSA.com
She produce a variety of nature-inspired natural skin care, gifts and collectibles. "My natural skin care line is HomeGrown Beauty Essentials. I am a five-year certified master gardener. Teaching and lecturing brings me great joy as I can share with others a knowledge of something that in some way may enhance the quality of their life."

 Also, at the 1/30 Seed Exchange during the break period will be a representative from the Montgomery County Watershed Management Division Rainscapes Rewards Rebate program.  The RainScapes Rewards Rebate Program offers financial incentives in the form of rebates to property owners who install RainScapes techniques.
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Saturday, February 6 at Green Spring Gardens, VA:

"Get Started Growing Herbs"

Learn what herbs grow in our climate, and get tips on how to start them so you can create a beautiful and productive herb garden.   
 

Speaker: Debby Ward, Founder and Owner of Prior Unity Garden, is Founder & Owner of Prior Unity Garden - Growing Your Own Organic Food Made Easy. She has been gardening since she could crawl. Her family always had food and herb gardens in which she participated and she has continued that tradition.   She loves to help grow gardeners and is a taught for many local groups including The Mason Sustainability Institute, Master Gardeners in Fairfax County VA and the Grow Your Health Festival. She has focused on plants for food and medicine since being a young adult and holds several certificates in medicinal herbalism and has training in native plants, biodynamics, organic and native gardening. She values biodiversity, community, healthy living soil, fresh organic food and the prior unity inherent in all beings. 

AND

"Saving Your Vegetable Seeds" 
This workshop will give an overview of the hows and whys of seed saving.  We will explore the state of seed in the world today to discover why seed saving is not only a practical skill for gardeners to develop but also an important one for communities to practice.  We will then dive into the biology of seed production and cover techniques and considerations important for producing quality seed from most common garden varieties.  Resources for reference and further learning will be provided.
 

Speaker: Paul Blundell, has been a worker-owner at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange since 2005.  SESE is a worker owned coop mail order seed company in Central Virginia which specializes in heirloom, open-pollinated, and organic vegetable seeds especially suited to the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast.  He has done a little bit of everything and a lot of a few things while there.  Most recently he headed up the design and construction of a new eco-groovy headquarters for the business.

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We hope to see you at one or both of the upcoming Washington Gardener Seed Exchanges. Please send in your registration today as space is limited and spots fill fast. Print out the details and registration form here.

Winter Flowers for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Mahonia

Forsythia

It is Garden Blogger's Bloom Day again! On the 15th of each month, we gardeners with blogs share a few bloom photos from our gardens.

Here on the Mid-Atlantic USA (USDA zone 7) on the DC-MD border, the mild fall and December are long gone and winter has set in. No real snow yet, but my pond waterfall has iced over on a few nights and that has been enough to kill all the summer annuals and fall boomers that were hanging on until almost Christmas.

Blooming in my garden today are: Mahonia, Winter Jasmine, Hellebore, Heather, and a few premature Forsythia blossoms. Snowdrops should be coming soon as well as the early Daffodils.

What is blooming in your garden today?

Seed Exchange Sponsors Sought

Seed Exchange swag has been coming in my door. (And my living room becomes a bigger mess than normal!) 

I've been tweeting out photos and links to the sponsors as new items arrive. You can follow me @WDCGardener to see what wonderful garden goodies await our Seed Exchange attendees and drool along with the other seed-heads. Most items are inserted into the bags each attendee receives as they check-in and the larger items are reserved for door prizes.

Here are just a few of the items that have come in so far:

~ catalogs, handouts, and seeds from Southern Exposure SeedExchange

~ tubes of Zanfel Poison Ivy, Oak & Sumac Wash

~ passes to Brookside Gardens' Green Matters conference

If YOU would like to donate items for the Washington Gardener Seed Exchanges, please contact KathyJentz (at) gmail (dot) com. The deadline for sponsorships is January 28.

For full Seed Exchange information and registration see the post here.

BTW We also welcome sponsors for the annual Garden Photo Contest prizes. Our winning entrants welcome getting prize items both garden-related and of interest to avid photographers. To be a contest prize sponsor, email DCGardenPhotos (at) aol (dot) com by January 28.

Discuss "The Invention of Nature" at our Garden Book Club Winter Meeting

For our Garden Book Club Winter Meeting we will be discussing The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf. Please join us on Thursday, February 11 from 6:30-8pm at Soupergirl, located right next to the Takoma metro stop.

The acclaimed author of Founding Gardeners reveals the forgotten life of Alexander von Humboldt, the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world and in the process created modern environmentalism.

Please RSVP to washingtongardener (at) rcn.com or at the book club event page at facebook.com/WashingtonGardenerMagazine by February 9, so we know how many chairs to hold for our group.

Here are the rest of our 2016 selections for the Washington Gardener Magazine's Garden Book Club:

SPRING - The Rambunctious Garden:  Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World by Emma Marris

SUMMER - Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West

FALL - Paradise Under Glass: An Amateur Creates a Conservatory Garden by Ruth Kassinger

The Washington Gardener Magazine's Garden Book Club is free and open to all. We meet quarterly on a weekday evening near a metro-accessible location in the DC-area. We will announce the details of each upcoming meeting about two months in advance. Please check back on this blog for schedule updates and announcements.

PIN THIS FOR LATER:

Register NOW for the 11th Annual Washington Gardener Seed Exchanges

The 11th Annual Washington Gardener Seed Exchanges, hosted by Washington Gardener Magazine, takes place on January 30, 2016 at the Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD AND at February 6, 2016 at Green Spring Gardens in Fairfax, VA. You can attend both or you have a choice on which side of the beltway you want to attend! 

Seed Exchange attendees trade seeds, exchange planting tips, hear expert speakers, and collect goody bags full of gardening treats.

Registrations are streaming in now and we expect a sell-out of both locations. We urge you to pre-register to guarantee yourself a spot.

The event also includes such “green” features as the garden book and catalog swap. Participants are encouraged to bring their gently used garden books and mailorder garden catalogs to trade with each other. Any leftover publications at the end of the swap are donated to the National Agriculture Library in Beltsville, MD.

The first annual Washington Gardener Seed Exchange was held on January 26, 2006. After that event’s success, seed swaps in other cities across the nation have joined in celebrating National Seed Swap Day each year on the last Saturday in January.

Subscribers to Washington Gardener Magazine receive a $5 discount off the admission to the Washington Gardener Seed Exchange.

The registration form is posted below. Please print it page 2 and fill it out, then mail it along with payment by Janury 25 to Washington Gardener, 826 Philadelphia Ave., Silver Spring MD 20910.

    And yes, you can attend and participate, even if you have no seeds to swap. We always have plenty of extra to share with new and beginning seed starters!

UPDATE:
A portion of the Washington Gardener Seed Exchanges proceeds will go to the Save Our Monarchs Foundation.
 

Garden PHOTO CONTEST Kicks Off!

The 10th Annual Washington Gardener Magazine Photo Contest kicks off now! Time to start sorting and picking out your best 2015 garden shots. The entry period is January 1-22, 2016. 

Note that eligible entries must have been taken in the 2015 calendar year in a garden setting within 150-mile radius of Washington, DC.

We have four major entry categories:

~ Garden Views (landscape scenes)

~ Garden Vignettes (groupings of plants in beds or containers, unusual color or texture combinations, garden focal points, and still scenes)

~ Small Wonders (flower or plant part close-ups)

~ Garden Creatures (any living creature in a garden setting)

Remember that garden photos need not all be taken during the first week of May nor should they all be tight close-ups of a red rose. Look for the unusual and for beauty in the off-season too. Our judges give equal weight to the following criteria when evaluating the entries: technical merit, composition, impact, and creativity.

Anyone can enter: professional or amateur, adult or student, local area gardener or visiting DC tourist. Past winners have included teenagers entering their first-ever photo contest and home gardeners trying out their new digital cameras. Our next Grand Prize Winner could be YOU!

See this page for the full contest details:

 Also, here is the entry form text:

Washington Gardener Magazine Photo Contest Entry Form:

• Name -      

• Full address-

• Phone number –

• Email –

• Years of photography experience-

• Whether you are a Pro or Amateur-

• Image File name and title-

• A brief description of each image-

• The category each image is to be entered in -

• The location where each image was taken -

• All available photographic information regarding the image (i.e. camera type, lens, lighting, etc.) - 

UPDATE:  Go to the link below to see the 10th Annual Washington Gardener Magazine Photo Contest winners -

http://issuu.com/washingtongardener/docs/2016contestwinnerspresentation

They will also be share in a photo exhibition this summer and in our next issue of Washington Gardener Magazine

DIY: Easy Moss Wreath

Guest blog by Gaby Galvin 

While wreaths look complicated, they’re actually quite simple to make. Follow these quick steps and make your own moss wreath, using foliage from your own garden and yard. This moss wreath can be used for winter holiday decor and beyond.
 

Supplies:

Straw wreath

Pincushion moss (grows in dense clumps in moist yards)

Sheet moss (grows in carpet-like mats in moist, shady yards)

Glue gun

Floral pins

Ribbon

Embellishments from your garden (shown here with ferns)

Instructions:

1. Brush dirt off your moss with a chip brush, making sure not to tear it too much.
2. Use floral pins to attach the pincushion moss to the straw wreath. Handle it carefully and use it generously so it looks full and plump. Cover most of the wreath this way.
3. Fill any ridges in the wreath with sheet moss. Make sure you aren’t using any dried-up pieces. Use a glue gun to keep it down, covering the floral pins.
4. Add embellishments as you like, including inserting live plant material. Tie a ribbon at the top of the wreath, if desired.

This easy-to-make wreath can last for several months depending on how well you care for it. I recommend hanging it outside on a front door or on a fence, so you can easily water it with no mess. It is important to water the wreath if you want it to last a long time as sheet moss can dry out if you don’t! Happy New Year!
About the author:

Gaby Galvin is a Washington Gardener Magazine summer 2015 intern who is studying multiplatform journalism at the University of Maryland. She does some gardening at home in Davidsonville, MD, with her mother and grandparents. 

 
This is the last post in this blog series on DIY projects for the home gardener. Look for the other installments in this DIY blog series by putting "DIY" in the search box here at washingtongardener.blogspot.com.