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Special Events
Hybrid Lunchbox Talk: Native Ferns: Diversity, Identification, and Use in the Garden
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesNorth Carolina is home to many species of ferns that are found in a diversity of habitats across the state. Accurate identification of ferns requires understanding their distinctive morphological features, which are quite different from the more familiar structures found in flowering plants. This lecture will provide an overview of fern biology, morphology and diversity, provide techniques and tools for identifying ferns, including FloraQuest, developed by the Southeastern Flora Team at the NC Botanical Garden. We’ll also explore some of the best species for home gardens.
Sculpture in the Garden Preview Party
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesJoin us for a soirée celebrating the opening of the 36th annual Sculpture in the Garden! At the Preview Party on Saturday, September 14, you'll meet the artists and enjoy...
Swift Night Out at the Davie Poplar
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesThis historic tree is located on the campus grounds between the Old Well and McCorkle Place. This is the only known tree roost in NC. Swifts can be seen in mass circling over the grounds before entering the tree. Parking is available at parking decks around campus and Morehead Planetarium.
NatureFest – for families!
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesJoin us for a family-friendly celebration of our native plants and animals! From carnivorous plants to live animal encounters, native bees to potting a seed, birdwatching to nature crafts and games, explore the wonders of nature through a variety of engaging outdoor activity stations. Locopops available for purchase. This event is designed for families with children up to age 10. Children must be accompanied by adult.
Annual Jenny Elder Fitch Memorial Lecture: What We Sow in Cultivating Our Places – How a Garden Culture of Care Grows Places and Their People
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesIn her presentation, Jennifer Jewell will explore the philosophy of Cultivating Place, her national, award winning-public radio program and international podcast, based on the belief that gardens/gardeners are powerful agents and spaces for potentially positive change in our world, helping to address challenges as wide ranging as climate change, habitat loss, cultural polarization, and individual and communal health and being.
She will walk audiences through how this power of gardens and gardeners is exemplified in not only her weekly program, but very specifically in her the subjects of her three books: the horticultural women in leadership roles in the award-wining The Earth in Her Hands (2020); the beautiful and innovative place-based gardens that celebrate western landscapes in?Under Western Skies; Visionary Gardens from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast (2021) - with amazing photography by Caitlin Atkinson; and, finally in What We Sow, On the Personal, Ecological, and Cultural Significance of Seeds (2023).
All together, these stories, garden and gardener inspirations tending to a culture of care are blue-prints guiding us in ways we can all grow our world better: more beautiful and brave.
Heart of Wonder: An Art and Yoga Retreat
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesEmbody the meaning of WONDER in your mind, body, and heart at our semi-annual art and yoga retreat. The lush summer background invites you to marvel at nature in new ways. Through the integration of playful and contemplative practices of gentle yoga, meditation, and creative art journaling, you will have the opportunity to awaken to the awe of each moment.
Annual Evelyn McNeill Sims Native Plant Lecture: Adventures in Ecological Horticulture
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesWho doesn’t love butterflies? Habitat cultivation is a vital component of creating ecologically healthy landscapes, particularly in urban settings. But traditional landscaping practices rarely take biodiversity into consideration, and there is a dearth of effective guidelines to inform this goal.
For ecological horticulturist Rebecca McMackin, biodiversity is central to landscape management. In her 10 years as Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Rebecca oversaw 85 acres of diverse, organic landscapes, all managed to support birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms.
Join us to learn how to use ecological insight and experimentation to develop new management strategies – and why careful observation and documentation of the insects, birds, and other wildlife in your gardens is crucial to their success.
Hybrid Special Presentation – Clover Garden: A Carolinian’s Piedmont Memoir
North Carolina Botanical Garden 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United StatesBetween North Carolina’s coastal plain and the Blue Ridge Mountains lies the Piedmont: some 250 linear miles of rolling, long-settled lands covering almost half of the state. Geologically speaking, piedmont regions are found all over the world, but North Carolina's Piedmont is among the largest in the United States, sitting along an environmental crossroads where northern and southern flora and fauna overlap, offering an incredibly rich natural diversity. Inhabited continuously for thousands of years, the state's rural heartland is today home to an increasingly dense population. Yet most who reside in the region's cities, suburbs, and smaller towns still live within reach of red-clay farmland, oak and hickory forests watered by small creeks, and rocky river valleys. These places—as they have been and as they are now—remain essential to the character of life in the South.