She'll Tell You How at the February 26th Garden Club Symposium

Mark your 2011 calendars now and order your tickets immediately for the Middleburg Horticultural Symposium, February 26th, when Julie Moir Messervy, one of the world's most respected garden designers, discusses "Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love."

Julie's portfolio includes enchanting gardens for noted estates, Yo-Yo Ma's Music Garden in Toronto, gardens for children of all ages and special features of world-famous landscape cemeteries. She is as at home composing landscapes of beauty and meaning as she is furthering the evolution of landscape design… Something she does with grace and sensitivity.

The 2011 symposium entitled "The Glory of the Garden : From the Ground Up" is organized and sponsored by the Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club, a non-profit organization that is affiliated with The Garden Club of America and The Garden Club of Virginia. Taking place at The Hill School, proceedings begin at 8:30 a.m. and continue through lunch and into the afternoon. Julie's lecture, "Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love," begins at 2:30 p.m. and concludes the symposium.

"My mother always gardened," Julie recounted, "…but my six brothers and sisters might not have loved it as much as I. When we moved to an old Italianate home in Connecticut with the bones of formal gardens, I was in heaven."

Allowing as how the annual boxing and unboxing of endless boxwoods might not have been her favorite pastime, she enthusiastically planned and planted a serious vegetable garden the summer she was 11 before she left for two weeks with a friend in Chicago. Her brothers promised to tend it until she returned, but, sadly, her newly sprouting garden was in the perfect spot for a new clay tennis court. The tennis court won.

All was not well when she returned, but she recovered, having no idea at all that after studying art history and art at Wellesley and doing graduate work in architecture at MIT, she would fall madly in love with landscape design when researching Japanese Gardens.

"It was then that I realized I could have a career doing all of the things I loved to do by creating landscapes of beauty and meaning, like the ones I studied in Japan."

After studying in Japan with a young garden master, Kinsaku Nakane, Julie returned to MIT and the Radcliffe Seminars to teach before she began building gardens and then taking design commissions.

Julie's much applauded work with Yo-Yo Ma on the Toronto Music Garden will be a highlight of her lecture at the Middleburg Horticultural Symposium, as will her landscape design theory and process.

Four Lectures

Three additional lectures by individuals whose experience and expertise are highly respected will also be included in the symposium. All lectures and lunch are included in the early bird price of $120 when you secure your reservations before February 1st. If you reserve after February 1st, the price is $135.

Doug Tallamy, Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, will speak on "Bringing Nature Home." He will discuss the extremely important ecological roles played by the plants in our landscapes, and will emphasize the benefits of designing gardens with these roles in mind.

Sean Hogan, of Cistus Design and Nursery, near Portland, Oregon, will speak on the topic, "Who'da Thunk, Fabulous New Trees, Shrubs and Perennials for Temperate Climates." A leader in the Northwest horticultural industry, Sean is widely published in botanical literature and magazines.

Holly Shimizu, who has been the Executive Director of the United States Botanic Garden since 2000, will discuss "The Garden of Essential Fragrance and Flavor." Holly will focus on the values of the best and must-grow herbs, and other plants that bring scents to the garden throughout the year as well as at different times of day.

Elaine Burden, who has served as chairman of the Middleburg Horticultural Symposium since 1997, explained how pleased the committee is to present the 2011 program.

"It is always our goal to bring nationally recognized horticulturists and designers to our region for the symposium," she noted. "Our program this year is really outstanding and we are confident our guests will leave with terrific ideas and lots of new thinking about how to create and care for the gardens we love."

Many fabulous vendors will make their wares available at the February 26th Middleburg Horticultural Symposium.

"This year, vendors will offer everything from orchids, plants and garden tools to jewelry, books and much, much more," Elaine explained. "It will be a truly memorable day for gardeners and those who enjoy them. We look forward to welcoming everyone there."

For more information about The Glory of the Garden Symposium, please contact Elaine Burden at 540 687 6940. To register, please make checks payable to Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club and send to Mrs. Frank Courts, 22035 Quaker Lane, Middleburg, VA, 20117.