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15th Annual Fall Garden Symposium
Sonnenberg Gardens is excited to host Vincent A. Simeone for the 15th Annual Fall Garden Symposium
Vincent has worked in the horticultural field for over 27 years. He received an AAS degree in ornamental horticulture from SUNY Farmingdale, Farmingdale, New York, and a BS in ornamental horticulture from the University of Georgia, Athens, GA. While at Georgia, Vincent studied under well-known professors Dr. Michael Dirr and Dr. Allan Armitage. Vincent also obtained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from C.W. Post- Long Island University in 2003. Vincent has specialized expertise in woody plant id, culture, use, and selection of superior varieties. Vincent is an experienced lecturer, instructor, and horticultural consultant. He has spoken to many groups nationwide and has appeared on several garden shows, including Martha Stewart Living and HGTV. Annually, Vincent presents an average of 50 horticultural lectures, workshops, and tours to garden clubs, plant societies, professional landscape, nursery, and arboricultural trade associations, and academic institutions. Topics range from plant identification, woody plant selection and use, historic landscape preservation, and general plant maintenance and care. Vincent teaches horticulture classes at New York Botanical Garden. Over the last fifteen years, Vincent has assisted Allan Armitage with garden tours through Southern England, Northern France, Southern Germany, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden. Vincent is very active in local and national organizations, including The American Public Garden Association, New York Hortus Clu
b, New York State Arborist, ISA Chapter, Long Island Arboricultural Assoc., Long Island Holly Society, American Rhododendron Society-New York Chapter, Nassau Suffolk Landscape Gardeners Assoc., and the Long Island Nursery and Landscape Assoc. Vincent has written and contributed to various gardening articles for magazines and newspapers including the Long Island based newspaper, Newsday and Fine Gardening. Since 2005 he has published six books: Grow More With Less: Sustainable Garden Methods, Great Flowering Landscape Shrubs, Great Flowering Landscape Trees, Great Landscape Evergreens and The Wonders of the Winter Landscape and Getting Started Garden Guide to New York & New Jersey. In 2010, Vincent contributed to a first ever textbook on public garden management. Also in 2010, Vincent was named Man of the Year by the Long Island Nursery and Landscape Association. In 2014, Vincent was awarded the centurion award by Farmingdale State College as one of the top 100 alumni over the past century. In 2015, Vincent was awarded the distinguished arborists award from the NYS Arborists-ISA chapter.
His lecture will focus on:
Selecting Deer Resistant Plants – Deer can be devastating visitors to the garden, defoliating the landscape like a swarm of locusts. Prized trees and shrubs can be ruined overnight and some plants such as pine, spruce, arborvitae and juniper often do not recover. Mature trees can be transformed into lollipops with all the bottom branches defoliated leaving foliage only on the top half of the tree. Although any plant can potentially be browsed by deer, there are certain plants that tend to be less appealing to them under normal conditions. While there are various deer repellents and elaborate fences on the market to protect your garden, this lecture will provide some good plant selections that deer will find less attractive to eat, allowing you to have a beautiful garden that deer will find less appealing.
Thinking Outside the Box: Selecting Alternatives to Common Evergreens – There are many tried and true evergreens used in the garden such as rhododendron and azaleas, arborvitae, cherry laurel, Leyland cypress, mountain laurel, holly, pine, spruce, and viburnum. These popular mainstays offer reliable aesthetic value and versatility in the landscape. But some of these plant groups are quite overused, resulting in a monotonous, vulnerable landscape with little to no diversity. This lecture will offer some more modern and underutilized genera of evergreens as well as lesser-known specias and cultivars of popular genera we know and love. Special emphasis will be put on proper selection, pest and deer resistance, specific care and maintenance, landscape function and benefits in the landscape.
Schedule: