Horticultural and Educational Excellence Awards for Garden-911 Owner

Garden-911 owner Carol Lundeen received top honors at the Sharon Garden Club's September Garden Medley on September 9, 2017. The event featured a Small Standard Flower Show sanctioned by the National Garden Clubs, a professional horticulturist-guided garden tour, live music, artists at work, and lunch under the shade of grand old trees.

Ms. Lundeen shared an Educational Excellence award in the exhibit WANTED: DEAD NOT ALIVE. The exhibit featured live potted exotic invasive plants and illustrated some of the environmental damage they cause. Ms. Lundeen, along with Brenda Minihan and Ellen Schoenfeld-Beeks of Sharon, created the exhibit in western style in a horse stall of an 1850's barn on Bullard Street in Sharon. The trio played roles as invasive plant sheriffs, engaging visitors in conversation and offering invasive plant checklists, images, and ideas for native plant alternatives.

Exotic invasive plants have no natural predators and diseases that would naturally control their spread. Some invasive plants have escaped from our home gardens and public plantings into natural areas and cause profound environmental and economic damage. Massachusetts has developed a list of problematic plants. Some are even illegal to sell, including Norway maple, Japanese maple, burning bush, all hollow-stemmed honeysuckles, garlic mustard, oriental bittersweet, and Japanese knotweed.

The exhibit also included a “Talking Tree,” a young pin oak tree that posed the question, “When I turn one hundred years old, what do you hope I will say?” Visitors then wrote their answers on a card and tied their card to the tree with yarn. The tree will be planted at Sharon’s Unitarian Universalist Church.

In the Horticulture Division of the flower show, Ms. Lundeen won the top honor for Horticultural Excellence. Selected from all blue ribbon winners among all perennials entries grown for their foliage, she also received an Award of Merit for her maidenhair fern. She received a second Award of Merit, selected from all blue ribbon winners in another section, for her cranberry bush viburnum.

Carol Lundeen is a Rhode Island Certified Horticulturist, Accredited Organic Land Care Professional, Certified Native Plant Horticulturist and Designer, and University of Rhode Island Master Gardener. Her business, Garden-911, specializes in fine organic gardening, maintenance, and design and serves clients in the Sharon area. Visit Garden-911.com for more information.