Upcoming Local

  • Spring Meeting & Plant Sale Saturday, 14 May 2016

    In Port Sanilac, MI, hosted by Barb Haman. More details in Spring 2016 Newsletter—coming soon.

Recent Local (reverse chronologically)

  • Thursday 7 May 2015 toSunday 10 May 2015

    NARGS AGM 2015 at Weber's in Ann Arbor

  • Saturday 24 January 2015

    at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor.
    This the traditional winter potluck with lunch. Members heard our own Jacques Thompson, speaking on Witches'-Brooms: From the Woods to the Garden

    “Witches'-brooms” are naturally occurring mutations on tree branches, especially those of conifers, that show a congested or otherwise dwarfed growth and form one of the foundations of the dwarf conifer industry.

    Jacques has searched extensively in Michigan and elsewhere for “Witches'-brooms,” and shared his adventures hunting them in the wild, as well as notes on propagating them and using Witches'-broom derived cultivars in the garden.

  • Saturday 20 September 2014

    Fall Meeting & Plant Sale.

  • Saturday 10 May 2014

    Spring Meeting & Plant Sale:
    at Harry Elkins, Westchester Rd., Grosse Point Park
    Harry's extraordinary small woodland garden in a charming neighborhood contains all sorts of usual plant material ranging from a giant Metasequoia, Cryptomerias and a Torreya taxifolia to many interesting spring ephemerals collected over many decades of gardening. It was a lovely day and we had a good plant sale and preceding auction.
    See also the Plant Sale insert.

  • Saturday 22 Feb 2014

    at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor.
    This was the traditional meeting with two talks bracketing lunch. Over 40 members attended and heard two fascinating talks.

    Louis Jordaan from South Africa spoke. Louis is a nature guide and environmental educator who runs an ecotourism enterprise and nature school, Minwater Eco Adventures, at Minwater ("Little Water"), a farm in the district of Oudtshoorn in the Klein Karoo ("Little Karoo"), in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. We are profiting from his longer visit with the Ontario Rock Garden & Hardy Plant Society.

    The two programs were:
    11:00 AM: South Africa: A Diverse Natural Environment
    This explored the seven biomes of South Africa with the emphasis on plant diversity, ecology, and scenery including especially the Klein Karoo in the Western Cape Province. where he lives and several of the biomes collide.

    12:30 PM Catered Lunch was much appreciated.

    1:30 PM: Nature Pictures That Tell Stories
    This presentation highlighted interesting facts and stories, with an ecological moral usually regarding South African plants, and the interaction between plants and other creatures.

    Later Louis continued his presentations more informally: he took supper with a number of members who were able to find more time at Asia City biffet and then showed even more of his many slides at a home. He is a fountain of knowledge that he is well able to present understandably.

  • Saturday 18 Jan 2014

    Winter Meeting & Potluck Lunch: at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor.
    Bill Brown presented Springtime in Istanbul.
    See [Newsletter]
    So many Turkish plants do well in Michigan gardens.

  • Monday 4 Jan 2014

    2pm at Fernwood Botanical Garden and Nature Preserve, Niles, MI
    Panayoti Kelaidis, Curator of Plant Collections at the Denver Botanic Gardens, designer of its Rock Alpine Garden, one of the best collections of alpine plants in North America, presenting a lively lecture on rock garden plants, plant exploration, and great gardens of the world. $25 (Special: Steve Bornell, manager of plant collections at Fernwood, invited Rock Garden Society members free to this event.)

  • Monday 28 Oct 2013


    Ian Young talked on High Rise and Time Share
    7:30pm–9:30pm at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor. [A special event arranged in cooperation with the Ontario Chapter.]

  • Saturday 21 Sep 2013


    Fall plant sale at Patrick & Bonnie Ion's, 1456 Kensington Dr., Ann Arbor, MI 48178-4817. [September Plant Sale]

  • Saturday 11 May 2013


    Spring garden tour and plant sale
    at Duvall Nursery, 9950 N Dixboro Rd, South Lyon, MI 48178-4817. [May Plant Sale]

  • Saturday 16 March 2013


    Peter George [NARGS president] gave his talk Evolution of My Gardens Or How My Gardens Prove that there is No Such Thing as Intelligent Design.
    at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor. He followed it with general question and answer session about NRGS and its present role. Before lunch there was a fascinating visit to the University of Michigan Herbarium led by its Director, Tony Reznicek. The UM Herbarium has specimens from many plant collectors famous to rock gardeners, such as Farrer, Rock, Wilson, Kingdon Ward and others. [Photo by Rimmer De Vries]

  • Saturday 19 January 2013


    Annual winter meeting and potluck lunch at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor 12:00 noon; program at 1:30pm was several presentations by local members: Don LaFond, Tony Reznicek, Rimmer DeVries, Mike Greanya. [We hope to link to some slides from this.] Many benefitted by taking advantage of the distribution of Chadwell seeds.

  • Saturday 10 November 2012


    Rex Murfitt spoke on Garden Plants for Eastern North America, with an Emphasis on Saxifrages
    at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor [Map].

  • Saturday 15 September 2012


    Fall Garden Tour & Plant Sale
    At Clarence Owen's, 3390 Allston Drive, Jackson, MI 49201.

  • Saturday 12 May 2012


    Spring Meeting & Plant Sale
    At Don LaFond's, 11836 McGregor Road, Pinckney MI.

  • Sunday 22 April 2012


    Fritz Kummert spoke on Searching for Plants in Albania
    and Our New Alpine House & Crevice Garden.
    Hamburg Senior Center, Hamburg MI [Map] 10:30—15:00.
  • 1:30-3:00 pm, Saturday 21 January 2012 at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor.
    Don Wild spoke on Dwarf conifers for the Rock Garden.
  • 1:30-3:00 pm, Saturday 22 October 2011 at Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Ann Arbor [Map]
    Tony Reznicek spoke on Alaska Alpines: from Sea Level to the Mountain Peaks.
    Slides of the talk as PDF [Big - 133.9 MB] [© Copyright Tony Reznicek 2011]
    Slides of the talk as HTML [smaller but still slow] [© Copyright Tony Reznicek 2011]
    Slides as an HTML list [yet smaller but clunky] [© Copyright Tony Reznicek 2011]

Upcoming National

Recent National

  • 7-10 May 2015: The 2015 NARGS Annual General Meeting will be held in Ann Arbor, May 7-10 at Weber's Inn, 3050 Jackson Road, Ann Arbor, MI, 48103. The meeting host will be this NARGS Great Lakes Chapter. We expect three outstanding speakers and will be visiting excellent open gardens nearby. Workshop demonstrations are planned. There will also be a post-conference trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

  • There were no Winter Study Weekends this year.

  • NARGS Annual General Meeting: August 28-30, 2014, Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa.
    Visit https://www.nargs.org/santa-fe-annual-general-meeting

  • Friday–Sunday, May 2–5, 2013 in Asheville, NC: NARGS 2013 Annual Meeting
    Exploring the Flora of the Blue Ridge
    [The website showing that AGM has since been hijacked to a Japanese porn site (21 Mar 2016).]
  • Friday–Sunday, October 12–14, 2012 in Mars, PA: NARGS 2012 Eastern Study Weekend [Website disappeared (21 Mar 2016)]
    Autumn in the Garden - A Time for Troughs
    Hosted by the Allegheny Chapter