Meeting Activities: Speaker, Flower Show, Master Gardeners (available for questions)
Click here for Flower Show Details
Guest Speaker: Kevin Kavanaugh
Topic: Selecting Trees and Shrubs in response to our Changing Climate
Kevin Kavanagh is the owner of South Coast Gardens and Consulting, a small nursery and landscape design business in heart of Ontario’s ‘Carolinian zone’. Although an avid gardener for much of his life, Kevin spent most of his early career in the field of nature conservation working for organizations such as The Nature Conservancy of Canada and World Wildlife Fund Canada.
Kevin’s long standing interest in native plants was fully ignited while undertaking graduate field studies in the diverse eastern forests of Carolinian Canada, the Appalachian Mountains and the U.S. southeast. Today, Kevin gets great satisfaction from working with clients to design gardens that provide benefits to pollinators, birds and incorporate elements of Ontario’s historical gardening heritage.
Kevin holds a B.Sc. (Hons.) from McGill University, a M.Sc. from York University and several years of post-graduate research in Botany at the University of Toronto. He currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Niagara Chapter of the Rhododendron Society of Canada and is a member of the Grand Erie Master Gardeners. Kevin is the author of several book chapters and articles celebrating Canada’s wild places and the rich plant life of the Carolinian zone.
Details of Kevin’s presentation:
As gardeners are aware, selecting plants that will thrive in their yard means taking into consideration those that will be well suited to their local climate. Trees and shrubs, because of their longevity, can become legacy pieces for the property to be passed on to future homeowners. For these long lived elements of our gardens, however, our changing climate and weather patterns introduce some increasingly unpredictable factors for plant choice. This presentation will reflect on some of the changing climate scenarios that may influence plant performance in the years ahead and provide guidance on selection of woody plant characteristics that may prove more resilient to our shifting climate here in southern Ontario.
Website: SouthCoastGardens.ca
Twitter: @scgardens
Stay tuned for more details.