The Piedmont Master Gardeners Association
460 Stagecoach Road, Charlottesville, VA 22902-6441 434/872-4580 Fax: 434/872-4578
PMG Calendar: Events Close to Home
Ongoing: Albemarle County Cooperative Extension Office Master Gardener Course. For information about schedules and applications, contact Lottie Dudley or Cathy Betts at 434/872-4580. Click here for an overview of the course.
Albemarle County Fair. Come on out and enjoy one of the summer's best community events next summer (2009)!! For details and a schedule, check out the Fair website. Great volunteer opportunity for PMG'ers!!
Charlottesville Farmers Market. OPENED APRIL 4. Saturdays. Water Street parking lot, downtown Charlottesville. Open spring till fall. PMG staffs a table at the market to answer any gardening questions you can throw at us.
Charlottesville Garden Club maintains a calendar of local gardening events throughout the year.
Crozet Farmers Market. Visit PMG's Help Desk at the market from spring until October! Other times, call or drop by the Help Desk at our HQ. 434/872-4583, M-F, 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. See you at the market in 2009!!
Fluvanna Master Gardeners sponsor many events of interest to gardening-minded folks.
Heritage Harvest Festival at Tufton Farm. 3rd annual festival on the grounds of one of Thomas Jefferson's five working farms. Check back for details, summer 2009.
Ivy Creek Foundation offers guide-led tours throughout the year at the Ivy Creek Natural Area on Hydraulic Road and the Ragged Mountain Natural Area off of Fontaine Avenue, Charlottesville. Workshops, native plant sales, lectures, special after-dark activities.
Meade Park Farmers Market (Wednesdays). Meade Park, Charlottesville. Summertime only.
Monticello offers “Saturdays in the Garden,” a special series of seasonal workshops and tours year round. Workshops throughout the year include planting vineyards, grafting apples, pruning and propagating historic roses, vegetable gardens, holiday wreaths and painting and sketching in the garden. Bird walks, wildflower walks, and lectures. 2009 calendar now on-line and in print. Events from March 14 to December 12. Also at Monticello: Historic Landscape Institute, biennial conference, held last year from June 15 to 27, 2008. (See also Tufton Farms) Check back for HLI date in 2010.
Piedmont Environmental Council sponsors workshops and events related to land stewardship, historic sites and viewsheds, wildlife habitat conservation, and local agriculture. They also maintain a calendar of upcoming events. For Charlottesville-Albemarle area events, click here. To learn about upcoming events in neighboring counties, sign up for the PEC's e-mail list.
Piedmont Virginia Community College offers several horticulture-related classes each semester. Check the calendar on the school's website for credit and non-credit courses in landscaping, pruning, organice gardening, viticulture and more.
Rivanna Master Naturalists program maintains a local calendar of events for the greater Charlottesville area.
Rivanna Trails Foundation oversees creation and maintenance of more than 20 miles of walking trails around the city of Charlottesville. Regular maintenance and trailing-building sessions are held from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, second Saturdays. See website for details. Call ahead to volunteer and confirm trailwork location.
"Through the Garden Gate" tours: A series of monthly tours of private informal gardens in the greater Charlottesville area. Fabulous opportunity to see local gardens not normally open to the public. Saturday mornings. Cost: $5 per person. Brochures can be found at area garden centers or by dropping by the Cooperative Extension office on Fifth Street Extended.
*** May 9: The gardens of Martha Derthick, 1618 Meadowbrook Heights Road, and Monica Woodbridge, 100 Warren Lane, Charlottesville. The side-by-side gardens of these two talented gardeners are successors to a single garden begun more than four decades ago by the late Warren and Virginia Cloud. Highlights include mature azaleas and rhododendrons, spring bulbs, and a bog fed by a natural spring. Directions: From 250 Bypass take Meadowbrook Heights Road. Go north to STOP sign at Grove Road. House are just beyond the intersection on the right, about 1/10th of a mile. Sponsored by PMG.
*** June 13: The garden of Patricia Cook, 322 Grayrock Drive, Crozet. Large planting beds dominate the front approach to Patricia's home in the Grayrock subdivision. Specimen plants, a 'bog garden' fed by downspouts and a woodland garden leading to a large lake are just some of the treats in store for visitors. Directions: Route 250 West from Charlottesville to third traffic light in Crozet (Old Trail Village). Turn right and go through Old Trail Village. Left onto Jarman Gap Road. In about 1/2 mile, turn right into Grayrock at Jarman Lake Road. Continue to ed. Sponsored by Buck Mountain Garden Club.
*** July 11: The garden of Liza & Cid Scallet, 1138 Kingsway Road, Batesville. After a number of entertaining false starts 22 years ago, the Scallets have transformed their property into a classic English woodlands garden, featuring an acre of daffodils, azaleas, and shade-tolerant perennials in both drifts and raised beds, embraced by a high canopy of oak. Directions: Take 29 South out of Charlottesville to Plank Road, approx. 8.8 miles south of I-64. Turn right on Plank, continue for 7.2 miles. Turn left onto Kingsway Road/Wavetree Hall Equestrian Center. Sponsored by Charlottesville Garden Club.
*** September 12: The garden of Cathy & Chris Kramer, 1650 Garth Gate Lane, Charlottesville. The Kramers' front courtyard boasts native woodlands and mature azaleas. Newer additions to the property include a formal parterre garden, extensive woodland gardens and beautiful winding paths designed for dawdling. A clever "disappearing edge" pool near the house offers sweeping views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Directions: Barracks/Garth Road west out of Charlottesville. Approx. 3.5 miles from town, pass Barracks Farm. Look for two stone pillars on the left: Garth Gate Lane. Make left through the pillars. Last house on right. (If you see Foxfields before making the turn off of Garth Road, you've gone too far.) Sponsored by the Albermarle Garden Club.
Tufton Farm, on the outskirts of Charlottesville, is the home of the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants and a working farm affiliated with Monticello. The farm hosts open houses, workshops, the Heritage Harvest Festival and a biennial Historic Plants Symposium. For details about both the Festival and Symposium, check out the Monticello website.
University of Virginia's School of Continuing & Professional Studies offers several non-credit personal enrichment courses in the area of "Landscape & Gardening" each semester. Click on link above to visit the SCPS website.
Vintage Virginia Apples (North Garden, VA). Specialists in heirloom fruits. Workshops in grafting and cultivation. Annual summer and fall festivals at Rural Ridge Farm, south of Charlottesville. Workshops for 2009 can be found on the farm's website. Fall Festival, including crafts, hayrides, an apple pie contest and more. For more info, click on link at beginning of entry.
Virginia's Historic Garden Week was April 18-25, 2009. Stay tuned for details about the 2010 line-up.
Virginia Native Plant Society (Jefferson Chapter) sponsors field trips and an annual plant sale (at Ivy Creek Natural Area in the spring). The VNPS online calendar covers events statewide.
Wintergreen Nature Foundation (Wintergreen Resort) offers workshops, hikes and special events year-round, including a Field Studies Institute and a Nature Camp. For offerings, check calendar on Wintergreen's website.
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