Eleventh Annual Garden & Landscape Symposium
The King’s Garden at Fort Ticonderoga presents the Eleventh Annual Garden & Landscape Symposium on Saturday, April 1, 2023. This program features practical strategies for expanding and improving your garden and landscape. We invite you to join us, whether you are an experienced gardener or you are just getting started, for helpful insights from garden experts who live and garden in northern climates.
STREAMING THE GARDEN & LANDSCAPE SYMPOSIUM! Those who are unable to travel to Ticonderoga for the symposium can sign up to participate online through Fort Ticonderoga’s Center for Digital History using Zoom.
Symposium Schedule:
9am Welcome—Stuart Lilie, Vice President of Public History, Fort Ticonderoga.
9:10-9:20am Challenges of the 2022 Growing Season—Fort Ticonderoga’s Horticulturist-in-Residence Ann Hazelrigg a brief review of the challenges gardeners faced in 2022.
9:20-10:20am Wolf Peaches, Poisoned Peas, and Madame Pompadour’s Underwear: The Surprising History of Common Garden Vegetables—Common garden vegetables have long and fascinating histories. Science and history writer Rebecca Rupp will discuss the stories behind many of our favorites, among them the historically much-maligned tomato and turnip, the aphrodisiacal asparagus, the (mostly) popular pumpkin, and Vermont’s dynamic duo of kale and Gilfeather turnip. Find out why a lot of us don’t like beets, how a 17th-century pirate named the bell pepper, how carrots won the Trojan War, and how George Washington was nearly assassinated with a plate of poisoned peas.
10:30-11:30am Add Berry Plants to Your Landscape – They are More than Just a Delicious Treat!—Berry plants offer more to a landscape than just the promise of a tasty treat–although that is a great reason to grow them! These woody and semi-woody perennial plants offer year-round visual interest to a home landscape and have the added advantage of producing some of the most nutritious food available. There are many uncommon berry varieties that expand opportunities for gardeners even in cold climates. Learn how to incorporate them into an existing landscape to create your own edible garden. Laura McDermott is from the Cornell Cooperative Extension and its Eastern New York Commercial Horticulture Program.
11:45am-12:30pm Lunch—Included in the registration fee.
12:30-12:40pm What to Expect in 2023—Fort Ticonderoga’s Horticulturist-in-Residence Ann Hazelrigg shares about what to expect in the 2023 growing season.
12:40-1:40pm Bees Besieged: A History of Beekeeping—Beekeeping goes back 10,000 years, but bees have been much in the news recently as a multi-pronged scourge has devastated many of the nation’s 2.5 million colonies. Meanwhile, hobby beekeeping has grown exponentially. Bill Mares will tell of the origins and evolution of beekeeping, the current challenges to bees and other pollinators and what gardeners might do to help. In his talk, Mares will draw on his recent book with Ross Conrad, The Land of Milk and Honey, a History of Beekeeping in Vermont. (Green Writers Press). Bill Mares has been a reporter-photographer, state legislator, and high school teacher. Raised in Texas and educated at Harvard, he has authored or co-authored 19 books on subjects ranging from the Marine Corps to desert travel, from war memorials to Vermont humor, and practiced beekeeping for 50 years. He lives in Burlington with his wife Christine Hadsel.
1:50-2:50pm “If we had Garden Seeds I dare Say we might soon have Salads”: The Military Origins of the King’s Garden—Join Stuart Lilie, Vice President of Public History at Fort Ticonderoga, to look at the eponymous soldiers’ vegetable beds of the King’s Garden we know today. From elementary to elaborate, explore soldiers’ gardens during the French & Indian War.