Fall Plant Sale Speakers

CELEBRITY GARDEN SPEAKERS

Special celebrity speakers during this event included local celebrity gardeners and educators Ciscoe Morris, Nita-Jo Rountree and Christina Pfeiffer.

• • 10:00AM-11:30AM: Christina Pfeiffer’s Pruning Dos and Don’ts for Heat Damaged Garden Trees and Shrubs

The exceedingly hot early June temperatures left its ugly mark on many plants and left many gardeners wondering about pruning their trees and shrubs. This talk will review best practices for pruning heat damaged plants and important care practices going into the fall season.

• • 1:00PM-3:00PM: Ciscoe Morris and Nita-Jo Rountree present Gardening in a Changing World

We choose plants for winter wet, then comes drought; we plant for cold weather then comes 108 degrees! We plant for shade, then a tree comes down. What’s a gardener to do? Come hear Ciscoe and Nita-Jo talk (and sometimes argue) about their favorite plants for a variety of conditions.

COVID-19 PROTOCOL: All registrants who attended the speaker events inside Aaron Hall Education Center had to be vaccinated and were required to wear a mask at all times.

Ciscoe Morris, a well-known personality in the Pacific Northwest, is featured regularly on King5 New Day Northwest, King5 news, and King5 Evening. After writing a newspaper column for many years, first for the Seattle Post Intelligencer then the Seattle Times, he left to concentrate on writing his newest book, Oh, La La! Homegrown Stories, Helpful Tips, and Garden Wisdom, published in January of 2020. Ciscoe gives over 50 garden presentations a year on average. he can often be found working in his Northeast Seattle garden which has been featured in several publications. Besides gardening, he is passionate about travel and leads garden tours to countries all over the world.

Nita-Jo Rountree is a speaker, educator, and landscape designer. She is a lifetime Georgia Master Gardener and former owner of LeGrand Gardens, a landscape design and installation company in Atlanta, Georgia. She currently serves on the board of directors of the Bellevue Botanical Garden Society, is a member of the Heronswood Garden Steering Committee, and serves on the advisory board of the Northwest Horticultural Society, of which she is a former president. Nita-Jo is a frequent speaker at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show, garden centers, and garden clubs. Additionally, she is a frequent guest and substitute host on Gardening with Ciscoe, in Seattle, Washington. Her personal garden was featured on the HGTV television show Gardening by the Yard and in the Pacific Northwest Magazine section of the Sunday Seattle Times. Also, she is a member of Great Garden Speakers, the Garden Writers Association, the American Rose Society, and numerous regional nonprofit horticultural organizations. Her book, Growing Roses in the Pacific Northwest, was published by Sasquatch Books.

Christina Pfeiffer is an horticulture consultant and educator who brings an emphasis on sustainable practices and gardening in sync with the seasons to her work. She has enjoyed a career working in public gardens, horticulture education, and consulting that spans over 40 years. Christina is a regular pruning instructor at the Edmonds College Horticulture department, Master Gardener training, UW Botanic Gardens classes, the NW Flower and Garden Festival and PlantAmnesty master pruning classes, among other programs. She holds degrees in horticulture from Michigan State and the University of Washington and is an ISA Certified Arborist®. Christina is author of Pacific Northwest Gardening Month-by-Month from Cool Springs Press.

Popular Books from our Speakers!

Our celebrity speakers had copies of their recent books available for sale at their event.
Ciscoe Morris: Oh, La La! Homegrown Stories, Helpful Tips, and Garden Wisdom
Nita-Jo Rountree: Growing Roses in the Pacific Northwest
Christina Pfeiffer: Pacific Northwest Gardening Month-by-Month

Master Gardener Alum Pat Roome had her recent books for sale.
You Can be a Horticulturist
Guidebook for New Gardeners

GUIDED TALKS THROUGHOUT THE GARDEN

We hosted guided talks throughout the garden, focusing on the unique areas that are individually maintained by the Bellevue Botanical  Garden Partners.

Washington Native Plant Society‘s Native Discovery Garden

Stewards, Janka Hobbs and Franja Bryant. Get an insider’s view of the successes and challenges involved in garden renovation. Learn too about the value of plant diversity in an ecosystem and the ways in which plants native to an area provide habitat for local birds and the insects on which many birds and amphibians depend. There are ways you can help create a sustainable haven for these plants and creatures. We’ll discuss the hows and whys of that, and we’ll demonstrate how to make a wattle fence that will fit naturally into a garden.

Janka Hobbs is a Washington Native Plant Society steward and is currently Chapter Chair of the Washington Native Plant Society Central Puget Sound Chapter. She has been volunteering regularly in the Native Discovery Garden since 2017.

Franja Bryant is a Native Plant Steward for the Washington Native Plant Society. She is Education Chair for the Central Puget Sound Chapter of WNPS and has been an active volunteer in helping to plan and maintain the new Native Discovery Garden at the Bellevue Botanical Garden.

Eastside Fuchsia Society‘s alluring Fuchsia Border

Caroline Zebroski will walk you through the Fuchsia Border. She will be identifying fuchsias, talking about their growth, proper care, and do a short hands-on lesson about fuchsia propagation.

Caroline Zebroski has been a member of the Eastside Fuchsia Society for over 30 years. She grew up in Pierre, South Dakota and had never seen fuchsias prior to when she moved to Seattle in 1986 to work for Boeing as an engineer. it was the first garden club she joined to learn more about these beautiful plants and to make some wonderful friends. Although she doesn’t like competing in the various Fuchsia shows, she listens carefully to all of the experts with their award winning plants to learn how to grow them into beauties. Hardy Fuchsias are the stars of the garden from mid-summer to frost. The Eastside Fuchsia Society is responsible for the beautiful fuchsia garden at Bellevue Botanical Garden. It was originally started in 1993 by Ollie de Graff. There have been many managers of the garden for the club throughout the years. Caroline took over managing the garden for the club in 2015 when the garden renovation started for BBG. Many volunteers from the club care for the over 130 varieties of fuchsias at BBG. Please come learn about how to grow and care for these beautiful flowers.

Northwest Perennial Alliance‘s Perennial Border

Cleo Raulerson will walk you to the Perennial Border and give you an overview of the Border, how it is maintained, name some of the plants in bloom in September, and describe what NPA-Northwest Perennial Alliance is working on for the future. She will explain how the Border was constructed with a mix of shrubs, perennials, grasses, and bulbs.

Cleo Raulerson has gardened, focusing on perennials and flowering shrubs, for more than 40 years. Her garden has over 750 varieties of flowering plants, and the garden has been on the NPA (Northwest Perennial Alliance) Open Garden Tour for 7 years. Cleo is Co-president of the Bellevue Botanical Garden Society Board of Directors, Co-Chair of Garden d’Lights, and is a King County Master Gardener.

Puget Sound Dahlia Association‘s Dahlia Display

The Puget Sound Dalia Association is dedicated to growing, hybridizing, exhibiting, and conducting research on dahlias in the Northwest region of the United States. Mark Lyke will walk you through the garden and talk about dahlia care, dahlia propagation, and dahlia varieties.

Mark Lyke is an active master gardener who has been growing dahlias for decades. He has worked as a horticultural manager for Lakewold Gardens in Lakewood, WA, and was on the board of the Northwest Horticultural Society for two terms.

A Walking Tour of Garden Design

Walk through the garden with Laura Watson. You will start at the Gathering Place at the front entrance and stroll along the perennial border, then make your way into the Yao Garden to look at garden design, garden texture, and how to use layering and vines to create stunning garden architecture.

Vine expert Laura Watson has been growing clematis and other vines, as well as great understory trees for the Pacific Northwest, for years and enjoys sharing her every-increasing horticultural knowledge with others. She is proud to be a King County Master Gardener, a PlantAmnesty Master Pruner, and a Council Member for the International Clematis Society. Laura has published articles in Clematis International and the PlantAmnesty Newsletter as well as in her blog, Clematisinseattle.com.