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Expo and Demos during lunch break
During the lunch break, audience members will have the chance to visit a variety of information, demonstration, and vendor tables. Our speakers will be available during this time to participate in “Meet the Speakers”, an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and engage in discussion with them. Pueblo Master Gardeners will have displays on a variety of topics including micro greens, pollinator habitats, rain barrels, propagation, and more. Vendors will be selling cacti and seeds. “We will also be screening the film Mirasol, a film about water, land, and a way of life at 12:30 p.m.” and hyperlink “Mirasol” with https://mirasolfilm.com/
Session Descriptions
Keynote: Jennifer Jewell
What We Sow in Cultivating Our Places
This session will weave stories from Jewell’s podcast Cultivating Place, and her first two books, and includes thoughts from her third book, What We Sow, on the state of seed (literally and metaphorically) in our world. This talk will serve to energize and inspire gardeners/cultivators in their horticultural work and remember why it is so critically important in our world right now to value this kind of work as highly as anything we do in our lives.
Top Performing, Tough Plants from DBG Chatfield Farms
Presented by Grace Johnson
Looking for reliable plants that thrive despite Colorado’s harsh climate? Grace has compiled a list of top-performing plants from Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms. The required criteria to make the cut include being well-behaved, well-adapted, sustainable, drought tolerant, and/or benefiting pollinators. Choose from this series of plants to create beautiful, functional, pollinator-friendly planting designs and gardens. Tips on maintenance will be included.
From Large to Small, Soil Health is in it All
Presented by Michelle Nelson
From 1000-acre rangeland pastures and cultivated fields to 0.15-acre urban agriculture operations, soil health is applicable to all types of plant-soil systems. We will delve into what the 5 main principals of soil health are, and apply the most important sixth principal, Context, to them all for application in landscape systems.
Underused Native Plants
Presented by Irene Shonle
While native plants are becoming more popular, we see many of the same species being used. This talk will focus on plants that are underused – some being easier to find than others, We will have an emphasis on plants from Southern Colorado – this is not only appropriate for the location of the conference, but with climate change bringing hotter and drier weather to Colorado, it only makes sense to draw from plants that are already more adapted to these conditions.
Year-Round Gardening in Colorado – Grow more food!
Presented by Idelle Fisher
Year-Round Vegetable Gardening in Colorado is Possible with a Cold Frame or Hoop House. If you love gardening and growing food, you should definitely add cold weather growing options like a cold frame or hoop house in your backyard.