Autumn Garden Party

Grow Native Nursery in the Veterans Garden invites you to the Autumn Garden Party on October 6 and 7, at 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. The second-annual event offers an informative native gardening lectures and huge selection of California native plants including hard-to-find species. This event is free and open to the public.

Speaker lineup

Saturday, Oct. 6, 11 a.m., Barbara Eisenstein

Saturday, Oct. 6, 1 p.m., Scott LaFleur

Sunday, Oct. 7, 11 a.m., Richard Hayden

Saturday, Oct. 7, 1 p.m., Scott LaFleur

Barbara Eisenstein, Saturday, 11 a.m., "How to Keep ‘Em Alive"

Learn how to not kill your natives from the time of planting through the period of establishment.

Barbara Eisenstein, native plant gardener and horticulturist, will demystify watering, planting, pruning and what it takes to establish natives. Eisenstein offers the horticultural tools she has gathered and used in her garden to keep her native plants alive and thriving. She blogs at Weeding Wild Suburbia and is horticulture chair for the San Gabriel Mountains Chapter of the California Native Plant Society. She founded and runs Friends of the Nature Park, a citizen stewardship program in South Pasadena, and received the 2007 Arroyo Verde Award for Best Citizen Activism.

Scott LaFleur, Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m., "The Path to a New Garden"

Sharing the right steps to take on the path of creating a sustainable garden.

Join Scott LaFleur, the new director of horticulture at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, for a conversation about what it takes to create a new and sustainable garden. Whether creating a balcony retreat, or a public sanctuary on the west side of Los Angeles, there is a path one walks on their way to making that dream garden a reality.

LaFleur is a landscape designer and a 1994 graduate of the University of New Hampshire. Before joining Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, LaFleur served as the director of horticulture at New England Wild Flower Society. LeFleur is on the Board of Directors for the American Public Garden Association an outspoken advocate for native plants and the importance of public gardens to our communities.

Richard Hayden, Sunday, 11 a.m., "Lush Landscapes: Low Water Using California Native Plants to Achieve an Exuberant Planting Design"

Water-wise landscapes can be lush and sensuous, too. This talk’s colorful images of low-water plants, unique planting designs and distinctive garden features prove that native gardens can be exuberant and evocative and still meet today’s strict irrigation standards.

Richard Hayden is a Los Angeles-based landscape designer and the current president of the Los Angeles District of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers [APLD]. He recently accepted the position of head gardener of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles’ North Campus Garden. The 3.5-acre wildlife habitat and home demonstration garden is set to open June 2013.

About Grow Native Nursery in the Veterans Garden

Grow Native Nursery works with the VA Greater Los Angeles Health Care System to maximize veterans’ opportunities in the sustainable horticulture industry. Grow Native Nursery is a nonprofit retail nursery that helps support the conservation, education, horticulture and research efforts of Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. For more information, please call (424) 234-0481 or visit www.rsabg.org.