Workshops & Events

While there are countless tree fruit varieties in nursery catalogs, some are better adapted to Central New York backyards than others. Mike Basedow will discuss his variety recommendations for backyard apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums, and apricots, along with the rootstocks they can be grown on in our local climate.

Basedow is an extension associate and regional tree fruit specialist with Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Eastern New York Commercial Horticulture Program, helping commercial orchards throughout the Champlain Valley, Mohawk Valley, and Capital District. He also teaches an online beginning orchard course through the Cornell Small Farms Program.

Mature, large trees are a desirable component of most urban landscapes, but they can pose a threat to people and property that owners cannot ignore. Most tree owners are not experts at assessing those risks, yet they may still have a legal duty to inspect their trees or to retain an arborist to do so. This presentation covers the basics of tree risk inspection, the symptoms and signs that call for closer inspection, and how to find qualified tree risk inspection services.

Christopher J. Luley, Ph.D., holds degrees in forest pathology from SUNY ESF and a doctorate in plant pathology from Iowa State University. He was a forest pathologist for the State of Missouri, has worked as a consultant since 1991, and founded Urban Forest Diagnostics in 2017. He has written more than 70 scientific, technical, and popular-press articles and three books on urban tree care, including Wood Decay Fungi of Urban Living Trees, and developed TreeRot.com. His awards include the R. W. Harris Authors Award from the International Society of Arboriculture and the Brian Skinner Lifetime Achievement Award from the NYS Arborist, ISA Chapter.

The introduced, invasive, and indomitable Japanese knotweed is becoming an increasing concern, and methods that rein in or eliminate other unwanted plants tend to fail with this beast. The presentation begins with some useful and perhaps surprising information about knotweed, reviews what doesn’t work and why, and then describes what does. It is tailored to homeowners, gardeners, and property managers.

Teri Dunn Chace is a writer and editor with more than thirty-five books in publication, and has written and edited extensively for Horticulture, North American Gardener, Backyard Living, and Birds and Blooms. Raised in California and educated at Bard College, she has gardened in a variety of climate zones and soil types.

Mike Mahanna traces the history of Hamilton’s tree canopy from its beginnings to the campus landscape of today. Through photographs taken across the seasons, including images from the early 20th century, he will identify trees standing on campus now and share a few stories from over the years.

Mahanna studied horticulture and landscape design at SUNY Morrisville and worked for two commercial landscape companies before joining Hamilton College in 1989. After 20 years at Hamilton, he left to run his own landscape design company, the How-to Gardener. He is a member of the New York State Arborist Association, a regular volunteer at the New York State Fair Arborist booth, and holds a Master Gardener’s certificate with the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oneida County.

In the garden, families matter — for keeping your plants healthy, for helping to identify plants, and more. Lee Reich, Ph.D., details the history of how plant families came about, what those families were and are based on, and — important for anyone who cultivates a garden — why knowing something about the families is good for every gardener and farmer.

Reich began as an agricultural scientist with the USDA and Cornell University before leaving academia to lecture, consult, and write. He was a garden writer for the Associated Press for 29 years and is the author of Weedless Gardening, The Pruning Book, Landscaping with Fruit, and six other books. His farmden — a farm/garden hybrid — is a testing ground for techniques in soil care, pruning, and growing, and a site for workshops.