Past Events

Cindy Funes

“Winter Beauty: Crafting Showstopping Container Gardens for the Cold Season”

Thursday November 7, 2024
Whatcom Museum • 121 Prospect Street
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Tickets: $10 Members • $15 General

Get ready to be inspired with this combination slideshow and demonstration planting of a spectacular winter container presented by Cindy Funes, an award-winning container garden designer. (This container is the evening’s raffle!). Cindy’s winter designs focus on texture and color, and the pots are underplanted with spring blooming bulbs to add further interest and additional pops of color later, while the rest of the landscape still remains quiet.

Cindy is a certified professional horticulturalist, award-winning container garden designer, and owner of Garden Revelry LLC. With over 15 years of experience designing, installing and maintaining container gardens in the Pacific Northwest, Cindy excels in creating unique, lush plantings that complement and transform living spaces. Cindy has appeared in several podcasts, live interviews, and articles. Her blog posts, videos, and classes are treasure troves of pro-tips, infused with vibrant visuals and best practices to help gardeners become more accomplished container gardeners, transforming gardening from a chore into pure joy.

Her mission is to foster love for container gardening, offer practical advice and inspire creativity. Cindy enjoys spending time in her garden, hiking, playing cards with friends, and hanging out with family and Tucker, her faithful companion. Her website, Garden Revelry, is filled with resources and inspiration.

Each lecture ticketholder will be entered into a raffle to take home the demonstration pot Cindy creates for us!

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Cindy Funes Lecture Tickets for November 7

Gary Lewis

“The Complete Talk on Ground Covers”

Thursday October 3, 2024
Whatcom Museum • 121 Prospect Street
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Tickets: $10 Members • $15 General

Online ticket sales are closed, please pay at the door.

“If ever thought that ground covers were simply a utilitarian strategy for covering dirt and outpacing weeds, you would have been awestruck by our speaker, Gary Lewis!” Poco Garden Club Newsletter

In this lecture, you’ll see photographs from gardens on four continents and an amazing array of different plants, styles, and designs. Ground covers offer a diverse range of beautiful and intriguing options with a variety of colors, textures, and forms. They can unify a landscape, knit together plantings and hardscape, along with adding extra layers of beauty, dynamism, and surprise. As a replacement for lawns, they can reduce our use of water, fertilizer and pesticides, and transform a yard into a diverse landscape and habitat. Gary will include tips and tricks for designing with ground covers to take your outdoor space to the next level.

While completing a Master of Science degree in Botany, Gary became the owner of Phoenix Perennials. This dynamic, award-winning, destination nursery in Richmond, BC, has over 5000 different plants, many of which are grown there from plant material sourced from around the world. Gary is an avid traveler and leads botanical tours to Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia. His book, The Complete Book of Ground Covers, will be for sale at our lecture. https://www.phoenixperennials.com/

2024 Fall Members Only Meeting

“Workshop: Create an Autumn Bouquet”

Thursday September 19, 2024
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church Social Hall
1720 Harris Avenue Bellingham
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Materials fee $45 – pre-registration online is required!
Seating is limited, this event will fill up fast.
You must be a current member to attend, join or renew online or at the door.

We’re back with one of our favorite member events – making your own arrangement! We’ll have a similar set up as before with many, many thanks to the Lutheran Church in Happy Valley for providing a place.

Kelly Swordmaker from A Lot of Flowers in Bellingham will guide us in creating our own seasonal fall bouquet. We ask that you check your garden and help with flowers, greens, grasses and other seasonal plant material. Suggestions: any flower, salal, miscanthus seed heads, rose hips, ferns, unique evergreens, ilex (please strip and bring in a bucket if possible).

The Social Hall of the church is on the lower level and  can be entered from the large parking lot on the corner of Harris and 18th. Registration is now open – pre-register and pay online asap as seating is limited, and we need to know the amount of flowers to purchase.

Bring with you: clippers, gloves, vase, and box to carry your arrangement home in. We will provide floral and greens, inspiration, chicken wire and floral tape.

Please help with clean up: wipe surfaces, sweep, recycle, put away tables and some chairs (round tables stay up).

Bouquet Workshop Registration

Bess Bronstein

“Tough Trees and Shrubs for Tough Times”

Thursday June 13, 2024
Whatcom Museum • 121 Prospect Street
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Tickets: $10 Members • $15 General
Get your tickets at the door using a check or bankcard, online ticket sales is now closed.

Bess’s talk will focus on some wonderful woody plants that can fit the bill as we garden into the future. Gardeners continue to seek out woody plants that can thrive in our Pacific Northwest. Ideally we want plants that now tolerate hot dry summers and wet winters, as well as the occasional winter freeze or lengthy drought period that have become more common as our climate changes. And it doesn’t hurt if these trees and shrubs are also resistant to common pests and diseases, require minimal care and provide multi-season interest.

Bess Bronstein is an educator, horticultural consultant, and ISA Certified Arborist® from the Kitsap Peninsula. She has over 35 years of experience in arboriculture, landscape management and garden design. Bess holds an A.T.A. degree in Ornamental Horticulture, and an M.Ed. from UW. She was an instructor for the Edmonds College horticulture program, with a focus on courses in pruning and tree care, plant identification, plant pests/diseases and diagnosis, and soils. Bess frequently teaches arboriculture and horticulture courses and does training for WSU Extension Master Gardener programs.

Jennifer Jewell

“Cultivating Place”

Thursday May 2, 2024
Whatcom Museum • 121 Prospect Street
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Tickets: $10 Members • $15 General

We invite you to join us for this inspiring talk by the amazing Jennifer Jewell. Jennifer is passionate about the power of horticulture, empowerment, and cultivating place. She is the creator and host of the award winning program: Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History & the Human Impulse to Garden. Her books include: The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants, Under Western Skies: Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast, and What We Sow: On the Personal, Ecological Significance of Seeds.

As an interviewer, writer and keynote speaker, her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about the culture of gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersection between places, environments, cultures, individuals, and the the gardens that bring them together.

Jennifer’s books will be for sale at the lecture, listen to her podcasts and find out more at www.cultivatingplace.com

Linda Cochran, accomplished plantswoman and long time Pacific Northwest gardener, had an acclaimed Bainbridge Island garden known for its a lush, tropical style. It was featured in many books, magazines and TV shows. 10 years ago, she went in the opposite direction, moved to Port Ludlow and created an amazing new garden. We’ll enjoy her stunning photography while she tells us about this drought tolerant garden that features many plants native to the arid west.

Linda now spends much of her time in the summer traveling to wildflower hot spots in the region and photographing wildflowers. Her goal is to grow as many of these native wildflowers as she can. She has spoken to many groups, both in the region and elsewhere, including internationally, on the subject of our region’s amazing wildflowers.

For more information about Linda go to https://lindacochran.blogspot.com or check out her Instagram at Cochran4131

Lorene Edwards Forker

“Cultivating Color”

Thursday May 4, 2023
Whatcom Museum • 121 Prospect Street
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Tickets at the door: $7 Members • $12 General
Join or renew online here »

Color is the most obvious element of a garden and an essential tool in the creation of a pleasing landscape. Expanding our ability to recognize the generous multiplicity of color informs our creativity across a variety of disciplines, in and out of the garden—color has the power to move us. Lorene Edwards Forkner is an author and speaker whose work centers on exploring the wonders of the natural world. In this inspiring lecture Lorene will explore the nature of color, perception, distinguishing nuance, and introduce the mindful benefits of using color to sustain concentration and focus.

Lorene is a warm and engaging speaker who uses imagery and language to tell garden/life stories that inspire and inform. She writes a weekly gardening column for Pacific NW Magazine in The Seattle Times. Her latest book, Color In and Out of the Garden (Abrams, 2022) will be for sale at our lecture.

For more information go to ahandmadegarden.com

Daniel Mount

“Spring Starts in October”

Wednesday October 9, 2019
Whatcom Museum • 121 Prospect Street
7:30pm • Doors open at 7
Tickets at the door: $7 Members • $12 General
Join or renew online here »

Professional  garden designer and curator, writer and teacher Daniel Mount will share the ins and outs of bulb selection, planting and maintenance. From the classics like tulips and daffodils to the oddities like fritillarias, brodiaeas, and corydalis, you will learn how to have the ephemeral beauty of these gems in your garden. Daniel Mount hails from a long line of wandering gardeners, nurserymen and farmers. He is frequent contributor to horticultural publications and has received awards from The Garden Writers Association for best magazine writing. His garden designs have appeared in Fine Gardening and Sunset Magazines. Daniel lives on a small farm in the Snoqualmie River Valley where he enjoys growing organic vegetables and fruits, and experimenting with flood-tolerant plants.

To learn more about Daniel visit www.mountgardens.com.