Plants with Benefits: Plotting a Purposeful Garden

Create a garden with more benefits than just beauty!

Curious how to make your garden work for you? While the addition of trees and shrubs can certainly make your landscape look nicer, the practical benefits of an ornamental garden are too numerous to ignore. Imagine: with thoughtful consideration, intentional placement and creative plant selection, your shade trees could reduce your energy costs, your perennial border could solve your stormwater issues and your privacy hedge could be filled up with tasty fruit.

This morning symposium is for everyone who loves plants, horticulture and gardening and is ready to go beyond beauty to make sure our gardens are not only gorgeous, they have purpose. Whether you're looking to maximize the benefit you get from a single planting, or you're one flannel shirt away from turning your home garden into a permacultural homestead, the Winter Symposium at the JCRA has something to teach you that's worth knowing.

NC State's own Dr. Barb Fair and Sam Hubert from One Green World Nursery in Portland, OR, will show you the practical potential in your ornamental landscape that's waiting to be unlocked. Barb will give you the tools you need to lower your bills while helping the environment through your plantings, and Sam will open your eyes to the substantial palette of fruiting plants that's available to zone 8 gardeners.Their knowledge and passion will inspire and empower you to fill your landscape with plants with benefits and get you plotting a more purposeful garden!

Schedule:

8:30 am: Check-in

9:00 am: Welcome
Mark Weathington, JC Raulston Arboretum

9:30 am: "Taking Trees with Benefits to the Next Level"
Barb Fair, Ph.D., Department of Horticultural Science, NC State University

10:30 am: Break

11:00 am: "Exploring Unusual Fruits and Cultivars for Zone 8 Gardens"
Sam Hubert, Nursery Manager, One Green World Nursery

12:00 pm: Questions & Answers with Presenters

12:30 pm: Conclusion

12:30 pm: Rare & Unusual Plant Auction closes

12:45 pm: Auction checkout

Presentations:

"Taking Trees with Benefits to the Next Level"
Barb Fair, Ph.D., Department of Horticultural Science, NC State University

Learn the science behind the benefits trees and other woody plants offer humans, other animals, and the environment, and how to make them work for you. We will discuss some specific tree options, where to plant them and how to maintain them to maximize the benefits they offer.

Barbara Fair is an Associate Professor in the Department of Horticultural Science and the Landscape Specialist for North Carolina. She provides expertise to extension faculty and the green industry, focusing extensively on issues of landscape sustainability and arboriculture. In addition, Barbara teaches various horticulture courses at NC State relating to her expertise. She is a certified arborist with an extensive arboriculture and urban forestry background.

Barbara earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s from Penn State University and obtained her PhD from Ohio State University.

"Exploring Unusual Fruits and Cultivars for Zone 8 Gardens"
Sam Hubert, Nursery Manager, One Green World Nursery

Gardens in USDA Zone 8 are exploding with often untapped possibilities. Though the climates of Oregon and North Carolina are very different, they share similar average low winter temperatures as well as ample chill hours for growing many different fruiting plants. We'll take a deep dive into some of the fruiting species and better adapted cultivars that Sam and One Green World have been trialing in their nursery and trial gardens around Portland, Oregon.

Sam Hubert is the nursery manager at One Green World Nursery, a retail and mail order nursery based in Portland, Oregon that specializes in fruiting trees and shrubs, perennial vegetables, and Mediterranean plants from around the globe. His interest is primarily on low water, low input perennial plants that are well adapted to the West Coast with a focus on figs, olives, pomegranates and cold hardy citrus.

Sam loves experimenting with new varieties that show potential for the home gardener and commercial orchardist and are resilient in an increasingly chaotic climate. Aside from growing fruiting plants, he enjoys combining West Coast and Mediterranean shrubs into edible landscape designs to add year round interest and habitat for pollinators and wildlife.

Registration:

This program is available both in person and online. Recordings of the presentations and supplemental materials provided by the speakers will be made available to all participants.

Early Registration (ends Sunday, January 5, 2025): $50.00 for members, $65.00 for nonmembers.
Regular Registration (Monday, January 6 through Monday, January 20, 2025): $65.00 for members, $80.00 for nonmembers.
Late Registration (Monday, January 21 through Friday, January 24, 2025): $75.00 for members, $90.00 for nonmembers.

Advance registration is required. Registration is available for in-person, on-site attendance or online attendance.

Registration for In-Person Attendance
Registration for Online Attendance

Registration is considered complete when payment is received. You will receive a confirmation receipt from [email protected] when registered.

Cancellation:

Program cancellations can be made up to two weeks before the program's start date. No refunds will be made after this time. A 15% cancellation fee applies.

Auction:

It's that time once again when the JCRA team pulls out all the stops and raids our own nursery collection plants to share in the Winter Auction. As always, we have some exceptionally cool plants.

No matter how jaded a plant lover you might be, there is sure to be something on the list to get your blood pumping and your temperature rising—the perfect antidote to the winter blues.

Auction Opens 12:00 pm et, Wednesday, January 22, 2025 and closes 12:30 pm et, Saturday, January 25, 2025. Times will be scheduled for auction winners to pick up plants from the JCRA.

All proceeds from the plant auction benefit the daily operations of the JC Raulston Arboretum. All funds raised from the plant auction are collected and managed by the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)3 nonprofit (tax ID 56-6049304).

Location: Online and in person at the Ruby C. McSwain Education Center, JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University, 4415 Beryl Road, Raleigh, NC 27606.

Parking: Free parking is available at the JC Raulston Arboretum and along Beryl Road.

Questions: Contact the JCRA Education Team at [email protected] for more information about this program.