Speakers Series

February 15, 2022

Chairmen Elaine Burden, Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club and Fleet Hurlbatt, The Garden Club of the Eastern Shore

The inaugural Speakers Series event was held on January 15, 2001, at the Kent-Valentine House. The first speaker, Arabella Dane of Boston, Massachusetts, presented “Creative Elements of Design.” Mrs. Dane is a Garden Club of America flower-arranging and horticulture judge, a master flower show judge, landscape consultant and founder of the GCA Flower Arranging Study Group. The second speaker, Mary Phipps of Old Westbury, Long Island, presented a slide show using Old Westbury gardens to illustrate the importance of connecting one’s house to the landscape and how to have a succession of color throughout the season. Mrs. Phipps is a GCA member and a former president of the Old Westbury Gardens Board of Trustees.

The 2002 Speakers Series was held January 7 at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. The event sold out, but inclement weather west of Charlottesville prevented some ticket holders from crossing snowy Afton Mountain. Vacancies were filled with wait-listed members. Landscape Architect Chip Callaway focused on landscape design and presented a slide program, “Favorite Plants in the Garden.” Suzy Bales, author and flower lover who tends a large garden off the north shore of Long Island, spoke on the scented garden, and author Jack Staub, widely considered to be one of the country’s leading experts on edible gardening, spoke on classic and contemporary vegetable gardens.