To Register for Classes, or for more information call (805) 844-7449.
Need to Cancel a Class? We offer full refunds for any cancellation made at least a week before the class you are registered for begins.
Unless noted otherwise, all classes are held at Calvary Christian Fellowship Church, 4221 East Main Street in Ventura,
right next door to Nopalito Native Plant Nursery.
with sustainable landscape designer Lisa Burton
When |
Saturday September 25, 2010
9:30 am – 11:00 am |
Where |
Calvary Christian Fellowship Church
4221 East Main Street (next door to Nopalito Nursery)
Ventura, California 93003
(Click here for Map)
|
Description |
Lawns, lawns, lawns … they are everywhere, but why? Nopalito is proud to
present a FREE lecture about how to garden without the grass. This creative and
engaging lecture, presented by local landscape designer Lisa Burton, covers the
history of lawns in America (and you thought Disco was bad!), lawn alternatives,
and practical considerations for lawn replacement including preparation and
maintenance.
Professional garden designer Lisa Burton of Nature by Design
(Ventura!) has been creating sustainable, “lawnless” garden
landscapes for her clients for the last 10 years. Lisa is a lifelong gardener
and former Master Gardener. This year, she was honored with a Special
Recognition Award from the Ventura County Board of Supervisors as part of their
2010 Climate Action Awards ceremony, for her efforts to "Think Global, Act
Local".
Her garden design company,
Nature by Design,
is committed to environmentally friendly landscaping including water-wise
gardens, wildlife habitats, ocean-friendly gardens, and balanced garden
ecosystems. Her past work can be seen at
nbdgardens.com.
|
Admission |
FREE (must call to reserve a space!) |
a workshop with award-winning landscape architect Billy Goodnick
When |
Saturday October 9, 2010
9:30 am – 12:30 pm |
Where |
Calvary Christian Fellowship Church
4221 East Main Street (next door to Nopalito Nursery)
Ventura, California 93003
(Click here for Map)
|
Description |
If you’re tired of water-greedy lawns surrounded by tiny, unimaginative
planting beds, this workshop is for you! Join award-winning landscape architect
Billy Goodnick (co-host of Garden Wise Guys on TV,
blogger at Fine Gardening magazine and Edhat, and contributor at
805 Living magazine) for an upbeat, in-depth look at how the pros
do it. Billy will show you how to find the right style of garden for your home
and hand you the design tools you need to get it done.
Workshop participants will learn to use native and locally adapted plants to
create a garden that is beautiful, functional and sustainable. Find out how the
limitless range of plant sizes and shapes, foliage forms and floral color can be
combined into an attractive, memorable garden … and GUESS WHAT??!? Good
garden design doesn’t have to be a mysterious process! There are a few simple
design principles that underlie any great planting scheme. Using his humorous
lecture style, eye-popping photos, and hands-on exercises, Billy will help you
learn the design fundamentals that apply to any style of garden.
The workshop culminates in a “scavenger hunt” at Nopalito Native Plant Nursery,
as attendees try their hand at developing “killer combos” that will work in
their own garden. Bring a few photos of your own garden, a list of your
favorite plants, and images from other gardens you admire. For beginning and
intermediate garden enthusiasts.
Billy Goodnick has been honing his mantra of “beautiful,
functional, sustainable gardens” for decades. As an award-winning designer who
worked his way up from swinging a pick to landscape architect, his presentations
are enriched by years of professional experience and infused with his stand-up
comic delivery. “That was too much fun. I thought there’d be a two-drink cover
charge for the entertainment,” is a typical response to Billy’s presentations.
“And I learned a lot, too.”
Billy’s writing credits include his
Cool Green Gardens
blog at Fine Gardening magazine,
bi-weekly SoCal-centric posts for Edhat,
and sustainable landscaping articles for
805 Living magazine.
Check out one of his posts!
|
Admission |
$35 pre-registration only, limit 40 participants |
with award-winning author Carol Bornstein
When |
Saturday November 6, 2010
9:30 am – 10:45 am |
Where |
Calvary Christian Fellowship Church
4221 East Main Street (next door to Nopalito Nursery)
Ventura, California 93003
(Click here for Map)
|
Description |
The beautiful world of native plants … with all of their showy flowers and
growth patterns, they are, without a doubt, beautiful to look at. But stop
letting your eyes have all of the fun! In this unique lecture, the highly
respected Carol Bornstein takes you on a journey for the senses, complete with
slides to show you how to design a garden with smell, sound, touch and taste!
Carol Bornstein is, in a word, the BOMB! She is one of
Southern California’s most highly respected native plant specialists, having
co-authored, with Dave Fross and Bart O’Brien, the award-winning book
California Native Plants for the Garden.
Carol has made some remarkable native plant selections that are widely used
around the state, including Verbena ‘De la Mina’ and
Lessingia ‘Silver Carpet’.
Carol earned her B.S. in Botany from the University of Michigan and her M.S. in
Horticulture from Michigan State University, and served as horticulturist at the
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden for 28 years. She is
currently working as a garden designer and horticultural consultant at
carolbornstein.com.
|
Admission |
FREE (must call to reserve a space!) |
a workshop with award-winning author Carol Bornstein
When |
Saturday November 6, 2010
11:00 am – 12:30 pm |
Where |
Calvary Christian Fellowship Church
4221 East Main Street (next door to Nopalito Nursery)
Ventura, California 93003
(Click here for Map)
|
Description |
Fall is finally here! The cool season, the rainy season, the fire season, the
World Series season … the pruning and planting season?!? YUP! Join us for
one of our most informative lectures yet, as one of the best in the business
guides you through planting and design ideas for the fall, along with a hands-on
demonstration of pruning and cleaning-up plants that may have gotten out of hand
in the summer. Highly Recommended for beginner and intermediate gardeners!
Register today: This hands-on workshop is limited to only 35 participants!
Carol Bornstein is, in a word, the BOMB! She is one of
Southern California’s most highly respected native plant specialists, having
co-authored, with Dave Fross and Bart O’Brien, the award-winning book
California Native Plants for the Garden.
Carol has made some remarkable native plant selections that are widely used
around the state, including Verbena ‘De la Mina’ and
Lessingia ‘Silver Carpet’.
Carol earned her B.S. in Botany from the University of Michigan and her M.S. in
Horticulture from Michigan State University, and served as horticulturist at the
Santa Barbara Botanic Garden for 28 years. She is
currently working as a garden designer and horticultural consultant at
carolbornstein.com.
|
Admission |
$20 pre-registration only, limit 35 participants |
with horticulturist & L.A. Times garden writer Lili Singer
When |
Saturday November 6, 2010
12:00 pm – 3:00 pm |
Where |
Calvary Christian Fellowship Church
4221 East Main Street (next door to Nopalito Nursery)
Ventura, California 93003
(Click here for Map)
|
Description |
Join us as we welcome one of our favorite speakers back for another informative
talk! Los Angeles Times writer and respected horticulturist Lili
Singer is gonna blow your socks and sprinkler heads off as she introduces you to
the wonderful world of natives.
This will be a great introductory class on gardening with California native
plants, where gardeners can find out how native plants benefit their gardens and
their communities. Specific techniques dealing with planting, irrigating and
maintaining a native plant garden will be discussed.
Lili Singer is a horticulturist, garden consultant
and freelance garden writer for the
Los Angeles Times. She also heads the Thursday Garden Talks at
the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden in Arcadia,
and recently became Special Projects Coordinator for the Theodore Payne Foundation for Wildflowers
and Native Plants,
a native plant nursery, seed source, bookstore and
educational center in Sun Valley, CA.
|
Admission |
$20 Pre-Registration, $25 Register at the door |
| |
Penstemon heterophyllus
‘Margarita BOP’
Blue Bedder Penstemon
When people ask us for us for drought-tolerant plants that have lots of flowers and look good year-round, we tell them such plants aren’t
native to California, just go to Home Depot and buy some Marigolds. And as they walk away sad and insulted, we tell them “just kidding!”
and lead them right to this plant, easily our best-selling perennial.
‘Margarita BOP’ (introduced by Las Pilitas Nursery)
is a total garden gem, forming a tidy clump 18 inches high and 2 feet
wide. Beginning in spring, masses of pinkish-purple-bluish-violet
flowers begin shooting up from the plant, the flowers seemingly changing
color depending on their age and the light in which they are viewed. A
single specimen of this plant is beautiful, but if your Dad gives you
enough money, buy a few and place them ‘en masse’ and get ready for a
little piece of Heaven in your garden!
A very ‘easy-to-grow’ low
maintenance plant, just find an open, sunny site with decently-drained soil
and off you go. Depending on where you live, you may want to deeply water
this plant once or twice a month to keep it looking fresh, and removing the
dry flower stalks has been known to encourage blooming throughout the
Summer, sometimes into Fall. Oh yeah, this plant looks pretty good in a
container, too.
So lets review, small, tidy evergreen plant, lots of
eye-catching neon purple flowers for months on end, minimal maintenance AND
drought-tolerant?? Yeah, you’re right, we should probably charge more for
this plant.
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