Urban Natives

Ethan Dropkin

Our first very well-attended meeting of the year on October 20 featured Ethan Dropkin, landscape designer and lover of native plants. He gave a fascinating talk on the similarity of challenging urban situations to equally challenging natural situations. For example, city tree pits share the same horrible conditions as forests in a flood plain. He also suggested some really interesting and unusual trees that work well in specifically terrible conditions and adapt to our changing climate. For example, the Blackhaw, a native viburnum that, unlike many cultivars, resists the dreaded virburnum leaf beetle, is very tolerant of sun or shade, ignores droughts and scoffs at high pH with its showy flowers, fruits and dramatic fall color. There were many more.

Results of this month's competitions:

Botanical Arts

1st - Floss O'Sullivan

2nd - Karen Fricke

3rd - Michele Tomasik

HM - Marilyn Zaret

Provisional - Tracy White

Flower Design

Provisional

Ali Kilduff

Novice

2st- Clare Kuch

3rd - Tray Reilly

Intermediate

1st - Kathy Bachmann

2nd - Marie Donnelly

Advanced

1st - Karen Fricke

2nd (90+) - Olga Bequillard

3rd - Susan Brady

Advanced Plus

1st - Fran Ackerly

2nd -Cynthia Corhan-Aitken

3rd - Barbara Baletti

Coming soon: horticulture results and glorious photos of all of this month's competitions.