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Editorial

Gardening Under Mediterranean Skies Moves to San Diego

by Richard G. Turner, Jr.

Photograph by Tom Piergrossi

Tom Piergrossi’s waterconserving collector’s garden in San Diego County.

With the completion of the 2004 Gardening Under Mediterranean Skies symposium, the education committee of the Pacific Horticultural Foundation felt it was time to take a hiatus in the biannual schedule of symposia and use that time to explore new venues and program ideas. After four of the popular symposia at the San Francisco Botanical Garden at Strybing Arboretum (three also held at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanical Garden), the committee agreed that the message of gardening in harmony with the West’s mediterranean climates should be brought to new audiences.

Board member Susi Torre-Bueno and the San Diego Horticultural Society have risen to the challenge with a brilliant new edition for Gardening Under Mediterranean Skies V: Lessons in Our Gardens. This symposium is co-hosted by Quail Botanical Garden, The Water Conservation Garden, and The Mediterranean Garden Society. This weekend symposium celebrates plants that thrive with minimal care in San Diego’s mediterranean climate and showcases a range of possibilities for a low-water garden. It includes keynote talks at Quail by award winning landscape architects, followed by visits to four excitingly different gardens for a combination tour and on-site lecture by the experts who designed them.

Participants will visit a garden devoted to California natives, one intended to attract birds and butterflies, another filled with succulents, and a fourth with a huge variety of plants - a true collector’s garden. One talk at Quail, on sustainable landscaping, will be by Santa Barbara landscape architect Owen Dell. The second Quail talk features Shirley Kerins, a Pasadena-based landscape architect and former curator of the Huntington Botanical Gardens herb garden; Shirley will speak on plants for mediterranean-climate gardens.

The weekend-long event includes tours of Quail, plant sales, and book signings. A box lunch will be enjoyed each day in one of the gardens, and there will be an evening meet-and-greet reception at Quail on Saturday. The registration fee is $155, which includes all Saturday and Sunday events, two lunches, and a one-year subscription to Pacific Horticulture. Discounted fees are available for members of the San Diego Horticultural Society, Quail Botanical Gardens, and certain other groups, as well as for Pacific Horticulture subscribers.

In addition to the two-day symposium for which participants must register, we are pleased that The Water Conservation Garden will be hosting a series of free talks and garden tours of their garden at Cuyamaca College on Friday, September 28. Michael Buckner will speak on the Cactus and Succulent Garden; Don Schultz will speak on Mediterranean Landscape Style for Low-Maintenance Lifestyles. These events are open to everyone, regardless of their participation in the weekend symposium.

Major funding for the 2007 edition of Gardening Under Mediterranean Skies has been provided by Garden Design magazine, Kellogg Garden Products, and the Metropolitan Water District. Additional support has been provided by the San Diego County Water Authority, Agri Service, Inc, KRC Rock, the Cuyamaca College Ornamental Horticulture Department, and the San Diego Floral Association.

For more information or to register for the symposium, visit www.sdhortsoc.org/medsky.htm or call 760/295-7089. Readers may also register by using the tear-out card opposite page 56 of this issue. We hope to see you there.

— RGT