30Th Annual AMGA Conference Renaissance Riverview Hotel Mobile, Alabama March 30 - April 1, 2020

30th Annual AMGA Conference Renaissance Riverview Hotel Mobile, Alabama March 30 - April 1, 2020

Conference Registration Form: Please complete a separate form for each person attending sessions or register at www.alabamamg.org. (List any guests on this form below. A guest is registered for meals only so does not need to complete a separate form.)

Last Name ______First Name______MI ______Street ______City______ST ____ ZIP ______Email ______Phone (____)______Local MG Assoc.______Please check one: MG______MG Intern ______ACES ______Speaker ______Vendor ______Other ______Preferred name on badge: ______Registration Cost includes Monday: Reception; *Tuesday: Coffee & Mardi Gras Sweets, Lunch, and Dinner; *Wednesday: Coffee & Mardi Gras Sweets. *(cash bar available) Check for _____Vegetarian or _____ Gluten Free meals. Early Bird Registration: Postmarked January 1-26 $160 $______(Enters you in a drawing for a refund of your registration fees.) Regular Registration: Postmarked January 27-February 29 $160 $______

Late Registration: Postmarked March 1-March 16 $170 $______Conference Logo T-shirts $15 each (must be preordered and paid for with registration) Please indicate Size and Number of each: S_____M_____L_____XL_____2XL_____3XL_____ Total number of shirts x $15 $______Guest Meals (Not available for late registrations) Vegetarian____ Gluten Free_____ Guest Name ______Monday Reception $33 $______

Guest Name ______Tuesday Dinner $43 $______Total Amount Due (Make checks payable to AMGA Conference) $______Mail form and payment to: Janet Waters, 5558 Thomas Jefferson Ct., Mobile, AL 36693 or contact: (251)648-3784 or [email protected].

RENAISSANCE RIVERVIEW HOTEL RESERVATION: Make your reservation soon for best room selection! Conference rate is $135 per night ($153.90 with tax). Use link below or call (251)438-4000 and ask for the AMGA Annual Conference 2020. Reservation link for 2020 AMGA Annual Conference at the Renaissance Mobile Riverview Plaza Hotel: https://www.marriott.com/event-reservations/reservation- link.mi?id=1555428147355&key=GRP&app=resvlink

ALABAMA MASTER GARDENERS STATE CONFERENCE March 30 – April 1, 2020 Renaissance Riverview Hotel Mobile, Alabama (All activities take place on the second floor of the hotel.)

Monday, March 30

9:00-5:30 Registration. (Second Floor) Shop vendors. (Second Floor) Silent auction. (Jubilee Suite)

10:00-11:00 Pre-opening Workshops Brenda Litchfield, Ph.D.: Waxing Camellias and Other Flowers (Mobile Bay I & II)

Derek Norman: Connecting Art to Science to People (Mobile Bay III)

Evie Pankok: Let’s Talk Trash: Recycle in the Garden (Grand Bay I & II)

11:00-1:00 Lunch on your own. Shop vendors. (Second Floor) Silent auction. (Jubilee Suite)

1:00-2:30 Welcome and Opening Keynote - Jim Martin: Gardening Future Forward (Bon Secour Ballroom)

2:45-3:45 Jim Martin: Star-Studded Floral Design Using Creative Structures, Grocery Store Fare, and Your Back Yard (Bon Secour Ballroom)

Evie Pankok: Let’s Talk Trash: Recycle in the Garden (Grand Bay I & II)

3:45-5:30 Shop vendors. (Second Floor) Silent auction. (Jubilee Suite)

5:30-7:00 Welcome Reception – Cash Bar with Hors d’œuvres. (Bon Secour Ballroom) Silent Auction. (Jubilee Suite) Shop vendors (Second Floor)

Tuesday, March 31

7:30-9:00 ‘Mardi Gras’ pastries and coffee. (Bon Secour Ballroom) Shop vendors. (Second Floor) Silent auction. (Jubilee Suite)

8:00-5:30 Registration. (Second Floor)

9:00-10:00 Bobby Green: Gulf Coast Appalachia: A New Frontier for Your Garden, Exploring the Trees and Shrubs of the Red Hills. (Mobile Bay III)

Bill Barrick, Ph.D.: Bellingrath Gardens and the Future of Public Gardens (Grand Bay I & II)

Beth Bolles: Selecting a Flowering Vine for Your Garden Space (Mobile Bay I & II)

10:15-11:15 Bill Finch: Light in the Long Leaf (Mobile Bay III)

Beth Bolles: Selecting a Flowering Vine for Your Garden Space (Mobile Bay I & II)

Sarah Skelly, D.O.: Adaptive Gardening: Strategies for Gardening as We Age (Grand Bay I & II)

11:15-12:00 Box lunch. (Bon Secour Ballroom) Shop vendors. (Second Floor) Silent auction. (Jubilee Suite)

12:00-1:30 Business meeting. (Bon Secour Ballroom)

1:45-2:45 Juan Mata, Ph.D.: Fungi in Your Lawn and Garden: Friend or Foe?(Mobile Bay I & II)

Jack LeCroy: Landscape 401k: How Long Will Your Landscape Thrive? (Grand Bay I & II)

David Held, Ph.D.: Understanding Pest Outbreaks in Urban Landscapes (Mobile Bay III)

3:00-4:00 Curtis Hansen, Ph.D.: Lichens in the Landscape (Mobile Bay I & II)

Bill Finch: Rediscovering the Seasons (Mobile Bay III)

Sherry Melton and Molly Dickinson: Small Containers, Big Impact (Grand Bay I & II)

4:15-5:15 Barry Ballard: Great Grasses for the Southeast and Beyond (Mobile Bay I & II)

Jack LeCroy: Houseplant Hysteria: The New Age of Our Indoor Companions (Mobile Bay III)

Sherry Melton and Molly Dickinson: Small Containers, Big Impact (Grand Bay I & II)

5:15-6:10 Happy Hour Cash Bar (Second Floor and Bon Secour Ballroom) Shop vendors (Second Floor) FINAL SILENT AUCTION BIDDING. (Jubilee Suite)

6:10 SILENT AUCTION ENDS

6:20 Dinner Awards Ceremony and Installation of New Officers Keynote Speaker - Dolores Hydock: Two Gardening Tales: “Becoming Mrs. Nash” and “Western Civilization” (Bon Secour Ballroom)

Wednesday, April 1

7:30-9:00 ‘Mardi Gras’ pastries and coffee. (Bon Secour Ballroom) Shop vendors. (Second Floor)

9:00-11:30 First Annual AMGA Film Fest (Bon Secour Ballroom)

1. Flight of the Butterflies

2. Ben Raines: The Underwater Forest

11:30 Closing Remarks (Bon Secour Ballroom)

12:00 Pick up silent auction items. (Jubilee Suite)

Possible 10 CEUs

Conference Speakers

Barry Ballard was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida. He has worked in horticulture for over two decades. Since graduating from the University of Florida, he has worked in horticultural research, public gardening, education, plant propagation, and extension services. Currently he is serving as the Plant Health Specialist and Director of Trialing, Research, and Development for Emerald Coast Grower, LLC, the largest ornamental grass liner producer in the United States.

Bill Barrick, Ph.D., was executive vice president and director of gardens at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, for almost twenty years before becoming executive director of Bellingrath Gardens and Home in November 1999. Dr. Barrick became director emeritus of Bellingrath upon his retirement in 2019. He is a past president of the American Public Garden Association and past chairman of the American Horticultural Society. His awards include the 1994 Arthur Hoyt Scott Horticulture Medal, the 2012 Alabama Governor’s Tourism Award, the American Horticulture Society’s 2015 Liberty Hyde Bailey Award, and the 2015 Auburn University College of Agriculture Outstanding Alumni Award for the horticulture department. Dr. Barrick is a graduate of Auburn University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and received a doctorate in landscape horticulture from Michigan State University.

Beth Bolles is the Horticulture Agent with University of Florida Extension in Escambia County. For 22 years, she has directed programs for homeowners and horticulture professionals on Florida Friendly Landscaping, Pesticide Certification, and general gardening topics. She has also coordinated Master Gardener volunteers as they provide community outreach to both adults and youth. Beth is originally from Nashville, TN and received degrees in Horticulture and Entomology from the University of Tennessee. Beth enjoys continually learning about plants and natural systems. Bill Finch is a writer, radio and TV host and naturalist who for decades has dedicated himself to exploring and understanding the Alabama landscape. He is an award- winning environmental reporter and garden columnist and was conservation director for the Alabama Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and executive director of Mobile Botanical Gardens. He now has his own environmental consulting company with his wife, Beth, and they’re developing multiple conservation, preservation and research projects. You can catch his radio show/podcast every Sunday morning from 9 until 11 on fmtalk1065.com. His book, Longleaf Far as the Eye Can See, published by University of North Carolina Press, is in its fourth printing.

Bobby Green Bobby Green is a landscape designer and owner of Green Nurseries in Fairhope, AL, specializing in Camellias, winter-interest plants, and scarce native plants. He has introduced seventeen Camellia sasanqua hybrids, including the internationally awarded Green’s Blues and Rose of Autumn and the Southern Living October Magic Series. He perceives garden design as an extension of our natural surroundings, thereby involving people within their garden. In recent years, he has turned his nursery eye to the heat-tolerant native tree and shrub species of the Gulf Coastal Plain.

Curtis Hansen is curator of the Freeman Herbarium at the Auburn University Museum of Natural History. He earned a B.A. degree in biology from the University of Utah and holds M.S. degrees from Brigham Young University and Auburn University. Working over two decades at Auburn University, Curtis has not only explored the incredibly diverse plant flora of Alabama but has also collected and documented the rich lichen flora of the state. He currently tracks the Alabama state- wide checklist of lichens. He enjoys educating about lichens through outreach programs every year. When not scraping lichens off rocks and trees, he likes working in his yard, swimming and being with his family.

David Held, PhD, is a professor in the Entomology and Plant Pathology Department at Auburn University where he has a 75% research/25% teaching appointment. His teaching responsibilities include economic entomology, general entomology, and landscape entomology. His research focuses on the ecology and management of insect and mite pests of ornamental plants and turfgrass. Dr. Held’s talk will present a survey of the science associated with the ecology and management of urban landscape plants. Plants and our horticultural practices have implications on pests in urban landscapes. Dolores Hydock has been a featured teller at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough and many other festivals, has served as Teller-in-Residence at the International Storytelling Center, and has won Resource Awards from Storytelling World magazine for her eleven CDs of original stories. Dolores is originally from Reading, Pennsylvania, where she won her first blue ribbon in storytelling in a local contest at the age of 5. Dolores now lives in Birmingham, Alabama, where she tends a large garden She's held a wide variety of jobs: a house parent at a halfway house for juvenile delinquents, a blues DJ, an au pair in Paris for three small children, a computer sales representative for IBM, a cookbook copy editor, an acting teacher at Birmingham-Southern College, and a teacher of Cajun dancing. If anyone questions her strange path through such a variety of jobs, she simply says that it's all just material for her stories.

Jack LeCroy received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Horticulture from Auburn University. He worked for the University of Florida’s Extension System for two years before making his way to Los Angeles to consult for a horticulture business located in Beverly Hills. Since returning to his home state in 2017, Jack has been working in Mobile as an Urban Regional Extension Agent for both Mobile and Baldwin Counties.

Brenda Litchfield, Ph.D, is a gardening enthusiast with an affection for Camellias. She taught K-12 for 13 years then 27 years at the University of South Alabama. She is active in environmental groups and is on the board of the Mobile Botanical Gardens. She travels extensively and has been to 62 countries, living in China and Thailand. Introduced to Camellias in 2004, she has about 300 and adds more each year. She co-authored The Camellia Garden Field Guide. Brenda would spend her last dime on a Camellia or, maybe, a plane ticket.

Jim Martin is a veteran horticulturist who has had a long career in public gardens and works as director of programs for the Charleston Parks Conservancy. As a flower and veggie grower, he owns Compost in My Shoe, which originated as a garden blog and is now also the name of Jim’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farming enterprise shared today through his garden design, boutique farming and teaching/consulting. Jim Martin’s relationship with the land began on a dairy farm in northern Ohio. Caring for the soil was what they called organic farming. A move to the Palmetto State of South Carolina at age 13 meant learning to garden in a foreign land. His 25-year career in horticulture began with a degree from Clemson and is coming full circle with Compost in My Shoe. Juan Luis Mata, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor, and curator of the Fungarium, with the Biology Department of the University of South Alabama. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research background is mycology. Mata’s broad interests are with the taxonomy, systematics, evolution and ecology of mushrooms. Some of his research projects are focused on American shiitake and other wood and leaf-litter decomposing mushrooms from the US Gulf Coast region and Caribbean basin.

Derek Norman was born, bred, and educated in England. Following a career in communications, he found an avocation in drawing and painting the native flora of the American Midwest. He has been a longtime designer, creative director, television producer, educator, and faculty advisor at Columbia College, Chicago, the Regenstein School of the Chicago Botanic Garden, Chicago, Illinois, and now the Mobile Botanical Gardens. Norman is co-author (with Ursel Norman), and designer/illustrator of eight cookbooks and various newspaper columns. He is represented in many private and permanent collections including the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Pittsburgh, the Library of Congress, the British Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Florilegium Society. Norman is a past president of the American Society of Botanical Artists (2013-15) and a fellow of the Linnean Society of London.

Evie Pankok graduated as a Master Gardener in the Duval County, Florida, class of 1999. The following year, she was hired as Florida Yards and Neighborhoods Program Assistant with Duval County Extension. Her position encompasses the Florida- Friendly Landscaping™ Program. In cooperation with the City of Jacksonville and the University of Florida, she teaches homeowners how to be “green” and create more sustainable landscapes. Evie has a group of 52 Master Gardeners who volunteered for her program area this year. With so many to keep busy and help earn their hours, she established and trains extra committees: The Talkers (speaker training), Creative Cousins (develop new programming and events), plus the Florida-Friendly Yard Advisor Team (review yards and score them for recognition with sign, certificate, and photo).

Ben Raines is an investigative reporter specializing in environmental issues and natural wonders for the Alabama Media Group, formerly with the Mobile Press Register. He lives in Fairhope, Alabama, with his wife Shannon, son Jasper, a big dog, a little dog and “way too many cats.” Raines also serves as a director of the Weeks Bay Foundation. Raines, along with the University of Southern Mississippi Department of Marine Science, recently found a shipwreck that looked like a promising match for the slave ship Clotilda in the Mobile River. The Alabama Historical Commission recently confirmed that it is the wreck of the slave ship.

Sarah Skelly, D.O., is a skilled and experienced family physician based in Navarre, FL. Licensed to practice in Florida, Dr. Skelly obtained her medical degree from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2014. She completed her master's in medical science from the University of South Florida. She also completed her residency in family medicine from Inspira Health Network. Dr. Skelly is a part of Santa Rosa Medical Group - Navarre Family Health. She is affiliated with numerous hospitals in Florida, including Gulf Breeze Hospital.

Zimlich Patio and Garden Center Team Molly Dickson and Sherry Melton have a combined 30 plus years of experience in the floral design business. Molly has been with the Garden Center for over 20 years. She just loves the merchandise and has made many wonderful friends. “I truly enjoy my job, making beautiful arrangements that make people happy which in turn makes me happy.” Sherry is a hometown girl who inherited her creativity and love of plants from her mom. She is a certified floral designer and garden consultant with 12 years at the Garden Center. Tommy and Donald Zimlich are the owner-operators of this homegrown, family garden shop and have spent a lifetime perfecting their trade. The shop caters to old fashioned gardening with nearly 100 years of experience to draw from. Tommy and Donald are fraternal twins who attended Auburn University where they each earned a BS in Agriculture. Tommy’s focus is on greenhouse production and with Donald’s landscape design, they are a perfect combination to advise the home gardener on all home environs.