"Tropical Fusion: Playing with Tropical and Subtropical Plants in Temperate Climates"

Speaker: Marianne Willburn

Tropical and subtropical plants can create incredible energy and excitement in the temperate landscape and provide strong design elements through the toughest and hottest months of the growing season, but many temperate gardeners unfamiliar with the genre are hesitant to dabble, fearing the creation of gaudy Victorian bedding schemes and a houseful of winter refugees. 

Using four memorable categories from her award-winning book Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, and a host of design tips intended to enhance, not overwhelm, the temperate garden, Marianne will focus on incorporating some spectacular examples in containers and beds – many of which are remarkably easy to overwinter for the home gardener.  A plant list will be provided.

Speaker Bio: Marianne Willburn is an opinion columnist for the American Horticultural Society’s The American Gardener and the author of Tropical Plants and How to Love Themand Big Dreams, Small Garden. She is a contributing editor at GardenRant.com, and her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Better Homes and Gardens and national podcasts such as Cultivating Place and A Way to Garden.

Marianne has also been a newspaper columnist for over a decade and is the recipient of several Gold and Silver Media Awards from Garden Communicators International (formerly GWA). Her most recent book, Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, recently received a Gold and Silver 2022 Media Award for both writing and design and was shortlisted by the Garden Media Guild (UK) for the Peter Seabrook Practical Book of The Year in 2021. She is a University College London graduate.

Marianne believes strongly that you should never wait for the ‘perfect space’ to create a restful garden oasis for yourself and your family, and she has spent much of her gardening life in small city and suburban gardens in places as diverse as California, England, and the Mid-Atlantic. In 2013, she began gardening intensively and exhaustively on ten acres in a rural corner of Northern Virginia and shares her gardening life at Instagram @marianne.willburn, GardenRant.com and on her blog, mariannewillburn.com.

This Zoom program is free to all HPS/MAG Members. $15 for Non-members. Registration is required. This event will be recorded and will be available for registrants to watch for just 2 weeks following the lecture. Click here if you would like to become a member of HPS/MAG before registering for this event.

Registration is now open, click here to register. The deadline to register is January 21^st.

Please make sure you have Zoom installed on your computer. Plan to join 5 minutes before the start time. The talk will be followed by a 15-minute Q&A. Questions can be submitted via chat box and will be read to the speaker by the HPS/MAG moderator. Please note that all participants will be muted for the duration of the event.

Important Info regarding registration: Please make sure you hit the "submit" button after registering on-line. If you do not receive a confirmation e-mail, then the registration process was not completed.