Rewild Your Garden: Planting Plans for a Cape-friendly Landscape features garden designer Marie Chieppo and plantsman Trevor Smith, who use eco-friendly practices in their garden designs. Learn how garden design can partner with nature to create beautiful sustainable landscapes using native plants. The emphasis is a composition that maximizes the landscape’s existing features and attracts wildlife.

Russ Norton, Horticulturist at the Cape Cod Extension reviews how growing and preserving plants native to Cape Cod enhances the resilience, diversity and beauty of our region.

During this program the presenters will demonstrate how these gardening principals are applied in two Cape Cod gardens. They emphasize how to take inspiration from natural settings and use it in the cultivated landscape. They share design tools that use the size, color, form and root systems of native plants to create a beautiful and ultimately self-sustaining garden.

The symposium fee is $40 and includes refreshments plus door prizes including plants, tools, gift cards, design books and custom centerpieces designed by the Falmouth Garden Club. Pre-registration is required. Check-in opens at 8 a.m.

Speakers

Marie Chieppo started her career in horticulture after graduating from the Massachusetts Master Gardener Program in 1999.

Her background in research at the New England Journal of Medicine set her on a course of curiosity and deep digging-- both in the soil and gathering facts. Her realization that nature is the best designer stemmed from her years of studies and volunteer work at The Native Plant Trust. She holds a certificate from the UMass Stockbridge Green School and is an accredited organic land care professional. Marie is an accomplished and recognized horticulturalist and designer with 26 years of experience owning a garden design/build firm in Sagamore.

Trevor Smith is Weston Nurseries’ Design and Education Manager. He brings 20 years of field experience as an entrepreneur and regenerative landscape designer to a team of professional horticulturalists, plant professionals and landscape artists. He specializes in landscapes designed to maximize the Earth’s systems while balancing them with the needs and desires of her human inhabitants.

Russ Norton is Extension Educator and Horticulturist for the Cape Cod Extension service as well as the UMass Extension’s Landscape, Nursery and Urban Forestry Program.

For more information call Laura Notarangelo at the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension, 508-375-6638.