2016 Tree Diversity Conference

Tap any gardener on the shoulder and ask them if they love trees. They would undoubtedly say yes, they would even go as far as to say they love all living plants, but that's a discussion for another time. If you care for your trees or trees in general, what better way to spend a day than hearing from tree professionals and their ideas on how to enhance a landscape for good looks or water conservation or both!

Tree Diversity Conference - DESIGN WITH MORE, TREE, TYPES is Thursday, March 3rd at Denver Botanic Gardens Mitchell Hall. Cost is $75.00 and includes lunch. The conference begins at 8:30 am.

From the DBG website - 

"The March 3, 2016 program will feature one of the foremost horticulture professors from the Front Range; a noted landscape architect with extensive xeriscaping experience in Texas and New Mexico; a Washington state horticulture professor noted for science-based debunking of arboriculture myths; and a Midwest arboretum owner, author and introducer of new tree cultivars. In addition we will hear a presentation on how many of the lesser-known tree species already growing in our region fared when tested against the severe weather events of the past year."

Register here-
Tree Diversity Conference

The speaker agenda from the DBG website -

Linda Chalker-Scott | Killing With Kindness: How We Enable Trees to Their Ultimate Demise.

This seminar will discuss the underlying problems with accepted planting practices including popular soil amendments and heavily marketed garden products that all contribute to landscape tree failure. Handouts will be provided and questions encouraged.

Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in horticulture from Oregon State University and is an ISA certified arborist and ASCA consulting arborist. She is Washington State University’s extension urban horticulturist and an associate professor in the Department of Horticulture. She is the author of four books, most recently “How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things Plants Do.” Along with her academic colleagues, she hosts “The Garden Professors” blog and Facebook pages, through which they educate and entertain an international audience.

David Cristiani | Dryland Trees: Onward!

It’s time to rethink our struggling urban forests, and set them on higher ground. Embracing what makes a place great, David will separate the false and cliché from inviting habitats--respectful of geography, climate extremes, limited water, soils and resulting patterns. Everyone benefits when trees mitigate urbanization on any scale and add visual drama, so put on your west-of-100 degree meridian eyes.

David Cristiani is a landscape architect registered in three states. He has spent over two decades designing public and private gardens of and for drylands, linking people to their appealing, natural sense of place. David researches ecoregions to inform better landscape design and assists growers by collecting seed of tough plants. He also writes and blogs about outdoor living. His design practice, Quercus, is based in El Paso.

Jim Klett | Thirty-Five Years of Tree Research and Teaching.

Dr. Klett will recap the highlights of his long tenure at CSU and the changes he’s seen in arboriculture practice and education, particularly how greater tree species availability can complement modern trends in landscape design. He will describe the history of his work with multi-site trialing of promising tree species and cultivars, the current status of PERC and the CSU Arboretum, and some of the plants he feels have the brightest future in the Colorado Front Range.

Jim Klett is professor of landscape horticulture and an extension landscape horticulturist at Colorado State University. He has been at CSU for 35 years and teaches in the areas of herbaceous and woody plant materials and in nursery production and management. He works directly with the green industry of Colorado, especially the nursery, arboriculture, garden center and landscape contractor industries. His research deals with landscape plant evaluation and introduction water requirements of landscape plants, green roofs and other culturally related concerns with landscape plants.

Sonia John and Mike Kintgen | Trees that Thrived, Trees that Survived and the Rest.

At our last two conferences we’ve heard about many uncommon tree species we might use to diversify our region’s urban forests. Extreme weather over the last year posed a severe challenge to many of those species and in fact even resulted in the loss of many common trees ordinarily considered reliable here. Mike and Sonia have scouted out and photographed a large number of lesser-known tree species to evaluate how well they handled the severe weather and will comment on the degree to which they can still be recommended for expanded use in the region.

Sonia John has been the chair of the organizing committee for this and the two prior tree diversity conferences. She was the senior author of the Denver Botanic Gardens-published book “Denver’s Canopy: the Nature of Deciduous Trees” and also wrote and illustrated the “Washington Park Tree Guide.” In the past she has worked closely with Drs. Martin Quigley and David Christophel, the first two directors of the University of Denver Arboretum.

Mike Kintgen is curator of alpine collections at Denver Botanic Gardens where he also oversees eight other gardens with significant collections of woody plants. A full time staff member of the Gardens since 2004, Mike has worked to increase the Gardens’ collections of Quercus, Sorbus and conifer species. Lately, he has been experimenting with various tree species on land at 8,200 ft. near Steamboat Springs. Mike has lectured nationally in Colorado and other states, and internationally in Sweden, Germany and Argentina about the Gardens and its current focus on steppe and high elevation floras in semi-arid regions around the world.

Guy Sternberg | The Artistic Morphology of Trees.

Find the inspiration of seeing trees with a broad new perspective. Guy covers the subtleties of seasons, lighting, tree features at eye level and ground level, fragrance, wildlife interactions, how to experience the full measure of trees and view-shed management as related to tree placement. Learn how to use the artistic features of your existing trees more effectively in the landscape and how to plan for new trees.

Guy Sternberg is the founder of Starhill Forest Arboretum in Petersburg, Illinois. Starhill is now a unit of Illinois College in nearby Jacksonville, IL. Guy retired after a long career with the Illinois Dept. of Natural Resources and is a life member of the International Society of Arboriculture and the International Dendrology Society as well as a landscape architect. He is also a founding member of the International Oak Society. He has written two books on native American trees (Timber Press) and has introduced many new tree cultivars.