Events

YOU ARE INVITED

GARDENING SYMPOSIUM
30 March, 2024

After several years absence we are delighted to resume our Art of Gardening symposiums with a look outside the norm of gardening. Sakonnet Garden is excited to present in Rhode Island:

“GARDENING ON THE EDGE”

Jimi Blake • Rowan Nygard • Eloise Gayer

Three forward-thinking and innovative speakers will show stimulating and novel perspectives in contemporary horticulture. They garden outside the boxwood… exploring modern design thinkings, new approaches to native plantings and insights into ecology. (Bios below)

We are keen to hear what they have to say and suspect you will too. Join us for a fun and engaging day.

Select whether you want a box lunch and add number of people to cart. Then hit Add To Cart. You will get an emailed acknowledgement.

Note: Being winter, the Garden will not be open during the symposium. 

Times:

  • 8:30 | Sign in, Coffee, Chat with the Speakers

  • 9:15 | Introduction

  • 9:30–12:00 | Morning Speakers

  • 12:00–1:00 | Lunch (chose below box lunch or local options)

  • 1:00–2:30 | Afternoon Speaker and Informal chats afterward

Location:

Wilbur & McMahon Schools, 28 Commons St, Little Compton, RI 02837

Lunch:

Sign up for box lunch $25 (veggie avail.) at registration below, or local options in walking distance.

Tickets:

In person and digital tickets are now SOLD OUT.

Thank you to those that will be attending!

If you purchased a digital ticket, a secure link to the ticket was sent to your inbox. This digital ticket includez the Zoom meeting link. Once you have downloaded the ticket, the link to the ticket will only last 24 hours after the first download. Please be sure to save the ticket file with your Zoom meeting link for access on the day of the event.

JIMI BLAKE

Jimi is charming fun and a born teacher. His energy excites and work inspires. Currently one of the UK and EU’s most renowned new garden-makers, Jimi is constantly churning and perfecting the next ideas, often remaking large parts of his garden each spring. His Hunting Brook Gardens outside Dublin, Ireland creates some of the 21st Century’s most beautiful matrix-planted perennial borders.

Jimi trained as a horticulturist at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin, then became Head Gardener at a large Victorian garden, Airfield, where at 21 was given full charge of redesign.

At Hunting Brook Gardens he is fulfilling his dream to expand his exceptionally rich plant collection and use it to design in dynamic and innovative ways. His classes and workshops at the garden are continuously booked.

Sakonnet Garden has been trying to get him for several years to speak in person. You will enjoy meeting him.

If you can’t wait, check out huntingbrookgardens.com and preview his recent book A Beautiful Obsession.

(We’ll try to get copies for him to sign.)

ROWAN NYGARD

Rowan grew up a naturalist in North Carolina exploring the creeks and forests around Durham, North Carolina, developing an appreciation of nature and a desire to know more about the natural world. This search has led him to a career in horticulture and to Longwood Garden’s graduate horticulture program. We know Rowan through his beautiful Instagram posts. After graduating he subsequently gardens and explores the biodiversity riches of southern Appalachia. Rowan sees gardens differently, as part of their ecosystems, and looks very closely with a focus on mycology and the ways that plants, animals, and fungi interact, a subject increasingly seen as ecologically important. With exceptional images Rowan intends to demystify and help us see deeper into the natural world.

See southernhighlandsreserve.org for more about Rowan.

ELOISE GAYER

Eloise is Lead Horticulturist at Stoneleigh in Villanova, PA, operated by Natural Lands, a local environmental organization restoring an old estate to an ecologically functioning native landscape. Stoneleigh’s is a pioneer. Its gardens are impressive for their modern twists on native plantings, both beautifully and in ecologically beneficial ways. Eloise is a trained horticulturist, having worked at Rutgers Gardens, the Morris Arboretum, Chanticleer and Great Dixter. She states her goal is to encourage more gardeners to integrate the native plant ecological horticulture practices she has learned and helped develop at Stoneleigh. 

See stoneleighgarden.org for more about its mission.

Visit the Garden

Additionally you can now sign up to visit the garden for the season when it opens on 2 May—Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until October. Register here to book dates to visit:

Save the Date

May 4, 2024

Sakonnet Plant Fair III, the famed rural plant fair, Veterans Field, Little Compton, RI 02837