Summer Garden Event Highlights

Don’t miss Natural Lands’ annual fundraiser – an evening of cocktails, roving supper, and much merriment under the stars!

This session features a live interview with Timothy Erdmann about the Chanticleer House & Terrace and Cutting Garden, moderated by Margo Rabb. They will discuss its plants, design choices, history, and the feelings these garden spaces evoke. We’ll pair these insights with short readings about public gardens and why they matter and then use prompts to create our own responses to the spaces: writing, optional sketching, and idea generation for projects students can continue at home. Ideal for writers, garden lovers, artists, and anyone who wants to explore how and why Chanticleer is a meaningful place of inspiration.

Curious about natural burial and how these spaces are cared for? Join Senior Horticulturist, Gregg Tepper, for a tour of one of our green burial sites. Learn about the natural burial process, from laying someone to rest to how quickly they become one with the earth, and discover how we thoughtfully steward these special grounds. After the tour, take time to enjoy the beauty of the site and experience the sense of welcome and comfort created under Gregg’s guidance.

Designed for guests with limited mobility, these monthly tours on a golf cart will be an intimate, 45-minute excursion led by a knowledgeable member of Stoneleigh’s staff. The tour includes dazzling displays of native plants, stately trees, and historical landscapes by the Olmsted Brothers that have been thoughtfully reimagined into a beautiful and biodiverse haven for people and wildlife— all from the comfort of a golf cart. Cart tours have a limited capacity of five people. All guests joining the cart tour must have a ticket.

This workshop focuses on setting intentions for the summer solstice while engaging in Hapa Zome, a Japanese term for thoughtfully engraining natural patterns into fabric using plant materials. You’ll journey through Laurel Hill’s green burial gardens, learning about the native plants in bloom and harvesting specific selections of colorful plant and flower materials that resonate with your intentions for your Hapa Zome creation. Using therapeutic patting techniques that allow for the release of tension, grief, and negative energies, we’ll create vibrant patterns and prints that you’ll be able to take home with you.

Formerly named the Land Ethics Symposium, this full-day conference is the Preserve’s education and engagement in action. The day features multiple industry speakers, including a highly anticipated keynote speaker, with program content that is innovative, inspiring and also practical. The event is open to the public and welcomes landscape professionals, students, educators, gardeners, homeowners and anyone passionate about native plants, conservation and sustainability. Join our community conversation!