11th Annual Ina and Lew Heafitz Endowed Lecture: Planting Your Path (Online)
This registration is for the online event. Please note: both online and in-person registration is available for this event.
In this conversation Abra Lee will discuss her garden roots from the dirt-road country of the rural South to a lesson in family history that helped define her life’s purpose. This is a story of failure, persistence, and how taking her Mama’s advice to “don’t be no educated fool” led her on a journey to uncover Black America’s legacy in ornamental horticulture.
The Ina and Lew Heafitz Endowed Lecture celebrates leading thinkers in horticulture, landscape design, sustainability, and more. These nationally-recognized speakers address cutting-edge and timely topics, presenting enriching talks centered around their work in nature-related fields. The annual lecture is free for all.
Abra Lee is a national speaker, writer, and owner of Conquer the Soil, a platform that combines Black garden history and current events to raise awareness of horticulture. She has spent "a whole lotta time" in the dirt as a municipal arborist, extension agent, airport landscape manager, and more. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University and alumna of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals.
Interested in gardening with ornamental grasses, but aren’t sure if you’re ready to commit or how to apply them in a garden? At Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, we have a plethora of ornamental native and non-native grasses through which Syretha Brooks, gardener and garden designer, will guide you. By studying the variety of shapes, sizes, textures, and colors, students will clearly understand how to use grasses effectively in perennial gardens or naturalized settings. Discussion will include grass management, cultivation, and habits. 
In this class, Courtney Locke, bulb grower and Staff Horticulturist, will discuss the world of bulbs beyond tulips and daffodils. Although the latter are beautiful and deserve attention, there are many varieties that bloom later into the summer and fall. Aconites, Camassia, and fall crocus are just a few that will be featured. Courtney will take you on an online visual journey; learn how to landscape with these bulbs, including naturalizing or gardening within an ornamental border, and how to manage bulb species over time—most bulbs are perennials, perfect partners in sustainable gardening.
Seeds are miracles of the plant world – a lot of power packed into a small case that sustains nature’s biodiversity. Former horticulturist and lead propagator of Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary and native seed specialist, Leslie Duthie, will guide students through the process of growing meadow plants from seed. Whether you’d like to convert a lawn into a mini meadow-scape, diversify an existing field, or start a large-scale meadow from scratch, Leslie will share the secrets of making meadows succeed. Using the palette of the Gardens’ naturalized areas, discussion will include seed collection, storage, and plant selection as pertaining to the environmental conditions of a setting.
Plants of salt marsh communities are uniquely adapted to tolerate and survive the stress of repeated, daily salt-water flooding. Learn which members of our wild flora can withstand these harsh conditions and the various mechanisms they’ve evolved to cope with—and even thrive in—environmental conditions that would kill most plants. Melissa will lead you on a low-tide botanical journey into an iconic and vulnerable Maine habitat. Please wear boots or sneakers that can get wet (and maybe redolent of the salt-marsh…).
Deepening your connection to nature through moving meditation offers enormous benefits for personal well-being. Follow Susan Bickford, forest therapy guide for the ancient Japanese practice, Shinrin Yoku, or forest bathing, as she gives you the tools to begin your own meditation practice. In this gentle class, experience how the simple practice of walking mindfully through a forest can provide deep serenity. By engaging with the forest with all five senses, we enhance awareness and presence. Despite a busy lifestyle, taking time for ourselves is enormously important—what luck that we can do so by walking in the forest! 
Our Northeastern forest genera consists of a wide assortment of deciduous and coniferous species that vary throughout the macro- and micro-climatic regions of Maine. Understanding these species helps inform landowners about management, the local ecology, soils, and successional development. Join us and learn how to identify many of Maine's forest trees and about concepts like silvaculture and climate adaptive species. Autumn is the perfect time for this exploration—beyond the natural spectacle, the range of fall colors provides Allysa Gregory, Maine District Forester, the perfect palette by which to explain trees and their color choices. Leave feeling more connected to our forests and confident in identifying trees in your area.
Ever wanted to preserve your garden after the season has ended, extending the enjoyment of its bounty? Join Staff Horticulturist Jen Dunlap and learn the process of making dried wreaths from cuttings collected from your garden or surrounding property. Jen will take you through this art and craft, step-by-step. A materials list will be supplied upon registration, as will a list of suggested cuttings to have on-hand, if you’d like to make a wreath during class. If you won’t have the dried cuttings, you can still learn and keep the recorded class demonstration as reference.
Join dahlia lover and horticulturist Courtney Locke to learn the best methods for growing these stunning gems. We’ll cover all aspects of locating, planting, and growing dahlia tubers, including purchasing, site planning, soil preparation, staking, feeding, pest protection, and (finally!) cutting and enjoying these sumptuous flowers. Learn how to identify the parts of a tuber, the different types of dahlia flower forms, and determine the best fit for your garden. As CMBG’s official dahlia grower, Courtney knows first-hand the exceptional cultivars that produce the jaw-dropping blooms that are truly worth the wait.
In this panel presentation, four CMBG horticulturists will review their top five perennials, from longtime favorites to new darlings from the 2021 growing season. With so many beautiful perennials at CMBG, each showing off unique foliage, flowers, structure, and wildlife benefits at various times of the year, it’s difficult to choose which ones to feature—but these top-20 are a good place to start!
Choosing native plants for your landscape should be fun and creative, not daunting or complicated! When you consider plants in simple groupings, or guilds, it becomes a lot easier to design a landscape with appealing texture, color, and wildlife value throughout the seasons. Native plant guilds draw inspiration from naturally occurring plant communities in habitats like coastal plains, forests, wetlands, or mountain tops. Leave this introductory webinar inspired, with plant lists for various light and soil conditions or landscape functions and the tools necessary for selecting your own plants for beauty and biodiversity.
