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Writer's pictureCat Meholic

Seed Swap & Book Exchange

Updated: Jan 18, 2019

Women in Hort members were lucky to be treated to a great event this last Saturday! Kate Galer and Julie Bare created a wintertime opportunity for us to gather over seeds and have gardening discussions. We had a mix of attendees from area garden groups, public gardens, and for-profit horticulture businesses.


Photo: Hanna von Schlegell

For me this event gave me a chance to relax with my colleagues and talk plants, garden projects, and upcoming industry events. I had conversations about turf removal techniques, slope planting, and winter revenue issues. Displayed throughout the event space were cards with conversation prompts. One of the most popular was;

"What is your horticulture resolution for 2019?"

Answers included; get a job in Plant Records (that one was obviously mine), reduce plastic use at home and in the garden, get rid of backyard turf, visit Hollister House in Connecticut, learn how to do bonsai, coordinate wholesale ordering, and learn how to operate small farm equipment.


Do any of these resonate with you? If so, email WomeninHort@gmail.com and we can connect you with other like minded individuals. Plus, some of these resolutions have inspired future events, so watch our event calendar!


Now for the event awards! That I might have just made up...


SVALBARD AWARD

Jennifer Hendricks, of Terraquarbor, wins first place for bringing the most amount of seed to the event. She brought 3+ shoe boxes of seed organized by category. Jennifer also fielded numerous questions about the different taxa, and never once did she seem stumped!


Jane's Calabash Seed Pod (Photo: K. Galer)

SIDESHOW-SEED AWARD

Jane, of Mt. Airy Garden Group, wins first place for bringing the most interesting seed to the Swap! Have you ever seen the fruiting structure of the bottle gourd, also called Calabash gourd, or Lagenaria siceria? It is from Mali and looks like a soccer ball sized geode, but is as light as styrofoam. Each section breaks apart into smaller "cells" and holds one large flat seed. National Geographic has a great and musical article on it here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2014/02/10/planet-calabash/

, and we were lucky enough to have a whole one at the Swap!


Clemencia in our gorgeous event space (standing in purple). Photo: H. von Schlegell

GERMANE GARDEN AWARD

Local gardener, Clemencia, gets first place in this category also known as the "Using Local Resources" category. She spoke briefly about her home rain garden installation that was partially funded by a grant from Rain Check, Philadelphia Water Department’s residential stormwater program, managed in partnership with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) and the Sustainable Business Network (SBN) in Philadelphia. SBN should sound familiar as they have partnered with WinH for events, and offer our membership their resources and training opportunities regularly. SBN has an initiative the "Green Stormwater Infrastructure Partners (GSI Partners)” that connects and supports local independent business in the GSI industry. Through Rain Check, SBN helps to connect  property owners with area design and install businesses to install residential stormwater management tools on their properties. More details on SBN and GSI Partners can be found here: https://www.sbnphiladelphia.org/


Julie 2nd from L. Kate 3rd from L. (Photo: Hanna von Schlegell)

INDEFATIGABLE DUO AWARD

Our final award aka the "Best Volunteer" award, we have a tie for first place; Kate Galer and Julie Bare did a fantastic job coordinating the event, promoting it, and ensuring we had a diverse mix of attendees! We hope to do more of these events in the future and would love to have your feedback as to what would make it special for you.


Until our next event, Happy Horticulturing!



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