We are excited to welcome you to our “Garden Rocks!” March workshop at Denver Botanic Gardens Mitchell Hall. Join us for a full day of practical, hands-on “How-To” presentations focused on rock gardening in our region.
Featured presentations include:
- James Marquez will demonstrate how to make and repair hypertufa planting troughs, along with plant selection and helpful tips
- Sean Hogan will explore plants of the Klamath Mountains and surrounding regions, with a focus on what they need to thrive in our rock gardens
- Rod Haenni will explain how to grow cacti and succulents in a Colorado Front Range rock garden, showcase in-garden examples of species he has grown, share his ongoing hunt for new plants from specialist nurseries, and briefly touch on growing plants from seed
- John Murgel will discuss the principles of waterwise rock gardening
- Member “How-To” Rock Gardening Tips shared throughout the day
- Q&A Session with a Rock Garden Expert Panel
Coffee, tea, water, and light refreshments will be available throughout the day. You are welcome to bring a brown-bag lunch, dine at one of the Denver Botanic Gardens restaurants, or explore nearby dining options. Dessert will be provided at lunchtime, and we encourage you to take this opportunity to relax and socialize with fellow attendees.
There is no cost for attending this outstanding day of presentations.
Seating is limited and we need to know how many are attending.
A limited number of Non-Member tickets are available for guests.
Reserve your seats while they last!
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Program Speakers
James Marquez
James Marquez is a self-taught gardener who grew up in Kansas City, Missouri.
He moved to Denver in 1993 and learned how different gardening in Colorado is.
Like many NARGS members, he has spent countless hours studying not only plants native to Colorado, but also regions around the world that mirror Denver’s conditions.
Along with his partner, David McCreedy, he’s hosted seven garden tours for four different organizations over the past fourteen years.
Currently, their small yard boasts over 1,500 kinds of plants (many tiny) and sports thirty-seven of his handmade hypertufa planters.
Sean Hogan
Sean Hogan, design consultant, author and nursery owner, was born in Portland and spent his later childhood years in Sacramento. He pursued his education in horticulture and botany at American River College and Sacramento State. Early work included mapping rare and endangered plants for the State of California as well as landscape and design work, often revolving around his love of western natives.
From the mid-80s to the mid-90s, Sean worked as the curator of South African, New Zealand, Australian, New World Desert and California Native Cultivar Gardens of the UC Berkeley Botanic Garden. In 1995, he and his partner, UC Davis Arboretum Botanist Parker Sanderson, returned to Portland to start a design and consultation firm specializing in regionally appropriate plants for the Pacific Northwest. This eventually evolved into their opening Cistus Nursery, located on Sauvie Island in the Columbia River west of Portland. Cistus Nursery is highly regarded as one of the best west coast retail nurseries and known worldwide for its collection of rare plants and advocacy of unusual and underused plants.
Hogan has lectured extensively in North America and Europe in addition to explorations of South America, South Africa and the western regions of the United States and northern Mexico. His writing and photos can be found in an extremely wide range of horticultural and botanical literature. He was the consulting editor of the 20,000-plus entry FLORA: A Gardener’s Encyclopedia, published in 2003 and published Trees for all Seasons in 2008, both by Timber Press.
Rod Haenni
Rod Haenni has been growing cold tolerant cacti and other succulents in the Denver area for the past 48 years, mostly in rock garden settings. He has travelled the Southwest and the world to see these plants in habitat and in botanic garden collections.
Rod has always been struck by the fact that succulent plants preferentially grow in close association with natural rock gardens and frequently on slopes. Attempting to duplicate these conditions in a man-made rock garden leads to success with dozens of species of cacti in our Front Range environment, where a 5b climate zone prevails
John Murgel
John Murgel is the CSU Extension Faculty for Horticulture and Natural Resources serving Colorado State University Extension in Douglas County. John studied ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder and received his MS in Horticulture from Colorado State University. A life-long gardener, his professional background is in public horticulture, having worked at regional public gardens for 10 years before joining Extension. John is particularly interested in the creation of low-maintenance, high-impact landscapes in difficult places, and loves using rock gardens to solve landscape issue
Reserve your seats while they last!
Members:
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Guests:
A limited number of non-member guest tickets are available.
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We truly appreciate you reserving your ticket in advance — it helps us plan appropriately for the event.
If you experience any issues while booking, please contact us at vicepresident@rmc-nargs.org, and we’ll be happy to assist you.