Gardening and All That Jazz - Designing a Better World

Come join us for a day filled with cool jazz tunes and green-thumb vibes! This in-person event is perfect for anyone who loves plants, music, or just a good time hanging out. Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just jazzed about nature, there's something for everyone. Bring your friends, your love for jazz, and get ready to dig into some fun!

Info: The Flora of the Midwest has a plant for every niche: from desert-like glade to flooded swamp.  Plants grow in clumps or run (spread by stolons or rhizomes) into extensive thickets.  Trees can be understory and small to towering giants. Mother Nature fills every void. This program will offer some ideas on how to utilize the attributes of our native flora to find solutions for challenging landscape situations. From street side hellstrips to poorly drained swales – from under power lines to steep banks there are native plants available to perform for you.

Info: Intimidated by lofty landscape principles? Let Carol trash the idea that there is a “right” way, and help you develop a fun, productive philosophy that guides your choices and forgives “mistakes.” Her inspirational slides show creative and solution landscapes, both for those with deep pockets and those with tight budgets. Would life be better with spaces for entertainment or edibles? ... or privacy screens designed for multi-seasonal beauty, that also provide a haven for birds and pollinators? ... or a safe place for pets and kids to run and play? This funny, wise and motivational talk will have you looking at your landscape with fresh eyes as a place that gracefully evolves with lifestyle changes instead of a plan that stays frozen to a place in time.

Info: This presentation explores Jack Barnwell’s diverse landscape architecture work spanning Northern Michigan to Southern Florida, highlighting the breadth of climates, ecologies, and cultural contexts that shape each project. It examines the unique challenges of designing in dramatically different environments—from cold-hardy, lake-influenced landscapes to subtropical sites defined by heat, humidity, and storms. The work reveals how these constraints become opportunities for creativity, resilience, and place-specific expression. Through built examples, the presentation celebrates the excitement of translating regional character, client vision, and environmental responsibility into thoughtful, enduring landscapes.

Info: Page Dickey, one of America’s best-known garden writers, shares her intimate, lesson-filled story of moving away from her celebrated garden of 34 years at Duck Hill, in North Salem. In her 70’s and needing to simplify her life and garden, she feels transplanted and begins again! Page shares her development and evolution in the 17 acres of fields and woodlands where she began a new garden and the stewardship of a wilder, larger landscape. It is a story for anyone who has had to begin anew – in gardening or in life.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Oakland Center at Oakland University, 312 Meadow Brook Rd, Rochester, United States

Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.

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