KC Garden Symposium set for February 27,2016

Garden Symposium 2016Gardeners, recharge your imagination and get savvy tips about plant selection and garden design from four nationally recognized garden speakers at the 2016 Kansas City Garden Symposium.

The Kansas City Garden Symposium returns to the Atkins Auditorium stage at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art on Saturday, February 27. The doors open at 8 a.m. The programs/lectures run from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This event is a fundraiser for Gardeners Connect, based at KC Parks Loose Park since 1958, whose mission is “to educate and inspire members of our community to become more complete gardeners.”

This is the tenth biennial Kansas City Garden Symposium, and the theme is “Sow Your Garden Adventure.”

Featured speakers include:

  • Plant explorer/author Dan Hinkley, who will talk about “Exploring Zone 6 Around the World”;
  • Garden designer Jan Johnsen, author of “Heaven is a Garden: Designing Serene Space for Inspiration and Reflection,” talking about “Liquid Dreams — Ways to Add the Magic of Water into a Garden”:
  • Artist and garden designer Lucy Hardiman, talking about “Color Outside the Lines: Making the Most of Color in the Garden” and, for the Friday evening banquet, “Beyond Plants: Furnishing the Garden”;
  • and Troy Marden, author of “Plant This Instead! — Better Plant Choices”, a PBS garden program host and north-central Kansas native, who will present a program on “Plant This Instead!” and “A Passion for Plants: Marrying Garden Design and Plant Collecting.”

The cost remains the same as in recent years, $79 for tickets bought by the end of January 16 and $89 after.

Tickets to the traditional Friday evening Garden Symposium banquet are $49, and a garden design workshop taught by Jan Johnsen and modeled on a class she teaches at New York Botanical Garden titled “Creating Your Own Slice of Heaven” on February 26 are $54.

For more details or to register, visit the Garden Symposium website.