Tuesday, March 9th - 7:00 p.m. Insects "The  Good, Bad and Ugly" Jim Revell Bedford Area Master Gardener

Jim Revell has loved gardening since his pre-teen days and following college and military he owned and operated a landscaping business in California. In 2001 Mr. Revell joined the Bedford Area Master Gardeners, taking advantage of the training and the opportunity to serve his community, and the rest is, as they say, history. He is currently a sought-after speaker on horticultural subjects. Through his various positions with the Bedford Area Master Gardeners Mr. Revell has inspired a hands-on approach and spirited enthusiasm that grew the organization to new heights. He is a regular with the Master Gardener College, and he serves on the MG College Advisory Board where he has had an active role in planning and implementation of the summer programs.

Tuesday, March 9th - 8:00 p.m. Beautiful Gardens: Top Ten Plants Neal Beasley Horticultural Specialist/ Landscape Designer within the Timmons Landscape Architecture group.

Mr. Beasley is a Horticulturist and Landscape Designer with over 16 years of commercial experience working with plants. He received his Bachelors Degree in Landscape Horticulture from North Carolina State University. After gaining experience in irrigation installation/ maintenance, commercial landscape installation and retail nursery sales, he moved on to become the Manager of Horticulture at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. There, he oversaw construction of and maintained over 30 acres of display gardens on an 82 acre site. Today, he is actively involved in the green industry as a board member for the Virginia Plant Introduction Program as well as providing lectures and teaching in the areas of general Horticulture and Landscape Design.

Thursday, March 11th - 7:00 p.m.
Making Chicken Salad from Chicken Sh*t - Building, planting and furnishing a garden using the imagination rather than the pocketbook.
Dick and Judith Knott Tyler, Co-owners of Pine Knot Farms

Dick and Judith Knott Tyler have owned and operated Pine Knot Farms, a retail, wholesale and mail-order nursery specializing in Hellebores and shade garden plants, since 1982. Judith is the author, with C. Coleston Burrell, of the new Timber Press publication entitled Hellebores; A Comprehensive Guide which features Dicks remarkable photographs.  The Tyler’s are former co-curators of the Garden of Winter Delights at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh NC.  Their gardens have been featured in Southern Living, Virginia Gardener, Virginia Living, Carolina Gardener, Heritage and Washingtonian magazines, numerous newspaper articles and on Martha Stewart’s television program and magazine.

For more information visit the Pine Knot Farms web site.

Backyard Habitats, presented by Master Naturalist Mike Battaglia, in association with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland fisheries, is a lecture on creating a wildlife habitat in your own yard, schoolyard or workplace, in order to recapture our connection with nature, improve the landscape for wildlife, and to restore some of the natural ecosystems that we have lost.

Mr. Battaglia has been a member of the Master Naturalist program since 2006 and is currently the Vice-President of the Central Virginia Chapter. He has studied Forest Resource Management and has a lifelong interest in silviculture or “species ecology”. He is a native of Buffalo, New York and has been a resident of Virginia since 1987.