Gardeners who would like to have gorgeous, healthy, and productive gardens are invited to the 13th annual day-long New Ventures Gardening Seminar on Saturday, March 16, at Northwood School, Minong.
The event – hosted by the Spooner Garden Club, Northwood Community Ed, and the North Country Master Gardeners – will inspire gardeners with presentations on roses, shrubs, plant hardiness, and plant diseases.
Gardeners will be able to attend all four sessions featured at the seminar:
• "Rusts and Smuts and Leaf Spots – Oh, My! Diabolical Diseases in the Home Garden" – Plant diseases can make growing vegetables, flowers, trees, and shrubs a challenge. Plant disease expert Brian Hudelson will give an overview of the types of diseases common in the home garden and how to produce healthier, more beautiful plants.
• “Tried, True, and New Shrubs” – Many new shrubs have been introduced over the last few years with a focus on adding color and compact size to the landscape. Kathy Zuzek, who previously worked in a woody ornamental research program, will explore some of those new shrubs along with older shrub cultivars that perform well in Zone 3 and 4 gardens. She also will look at how to select shrubs, what is appealing among the cultivars, and what is not so appealing in others.
• “Growing Roses that Thrive in the North” – David Zlesak knows roses – some of the roses he developed are already on the market. He will spotlight readily grown, proven cultivars and give tips on selecting and planting roses, helping them acclimate, aiding their survival over winter, pruning, and helping them combat diseases.
• Mini-Session: “Getting Plants through Frigid Winters and Steamy Summers” – Zlesak will explain what makes a plant “hardy” and how gardeners can help their plants flourish in a climate that can reach 100 degrees or more during the summer and plummet to -30 or -40 in the winter.
Who the speakers are
Hudelson is affectionately known as “Dr. Death” because of his love of plant diseases. He received his BS in Botany, Bacteriology and Molecular Biology, MS in Biometry and PhD in Plant Pathology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and in 1998, became the director of the Plant Disease Diagnostics Clinic (PDDC). The PDDC, part of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Wisconsin-Extension, provides expertise in diagnosing plant disease problems and information on diseases and their control to a wide range of clientele throughout Wisconsin. More information is at
http://pddc.wisc.edu.
Zuzek is a University of Minnesota-Extension educator with expertise in trees and shrubs. Her training is in forest science and in plant breeding and genetics. Prior to joining the UM-Extension horticultural team, she worked in forest pathology research followed by 19 years as a plant breeder on the UM’s woody ornamental research program that provided northern gardeners with the Northern Accents™ roses, the ‘Lights’ series of azaleas, Garden Glow™ dogwood, ‘Emerald Triumph’ viburnum, Firefall™ Freeman maple, Summertime™ Amur maackia, and other shrub and tree cultivars.
Zlesak is an assistant professor of horticulture at UW-River Falls. He has been breeding roses since he was a teenager, and his most recent release is the landscape miniature rose Oso Happy Petit Pink, one of three 2012 Award of Excellence Winners by the American Rose Society. He also breeds ninebark, heliopsis, and ageratum (and he has marketed all three, too). He coordinates the Northern Earth-Kind Rose Trials and works with colleagues in the study of rose diseases.
Seminar
The seminar will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., with registration and vendor sales beginning at 8:45 a.m. Pre-registration is required. The cost is $14, and check addressed to Northwood School can be mailed to Northwood School, N14463 hwy. 53, Minong, WI 54859.
As is the tradition at the seminar, 4x6-inch photos of plants, area gardens, and visited gardens are welcome and will be displayed during the event. Photos that are 8x10 are also welcome for displaying. Attendees are invited to send photos with their registration (not e-mailed in), along with the photographer’s name and a description of the photo. The snapshots can be retrieved after the seminar if desired.
Vendors with any kind of garden-related products are invited, too. Space is limited and needs to be reserved in advance.
New Ventures Garden Seminar is always held the third Saturday in March at Northwood School, which is four miles north of Minong on Hwy. 53.
Win 1 quart of Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil!
