Please join the Willamette Valley Hardy Plant Group on Tuesday, October 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM in the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1685 W 13th Ave, Eugene OR, for our guest speaker Scot Medbury, President emeritus of Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This month’s topic is “Turning Vision into Reality: Thirty Years of Garden-making in American Botanic Gardens”

Leading a botanic garden requires many skills, all of which come into play when mounting major capital projects. Scot will share his career experiences on the teamwork involved in envisioning, designing and building new gardens and facilities, drawing especially from award-winning projects at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Scot Medbury is president emeritus of Brooklyn Botanic Garden and also a veteran of public gardens in California, Washington State, Hawai’i, Great Britain and New Zealand. He holds two degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle: an MS from the UW Center for Urban Horticulture; and a BA from the Jackson School of International Studies. Scot is currently building a collection of rarely-grown subtropical plants in Oregon’s mildest climate on the state’s southernmost Pacific coast.

For more information about the group or this event, visit our website at www.thehardyplantgroup.org/events or email us at info@thehardyplantgroup.org.
Doors on the east side of the building open at 6:30 PM for refreshments, botanical sample browsing and socializing. Admission is free for members and $5 for non-members. Membership in the Hardy Plant Group is open to all and is only $30 annually. There is ample parking in the parking lot which can be accessed from both Chambers St or W 13th Ave, with additional parking in the adjacent Looking Glass Center parking lot to the north, but please do not park under their covered entry way. Overflow parking is also available in the first 20 spaces on the east and south side of Redeemer Fellowship Church just across Chambers St to the west. View parking map at www.thehardyplantgroup.org/contact
This in-person meeting will also be broadcast live over Zoom to members who are unable to attend in person. The Zoom broadcast will also be recorded, with a viewing link sent to members to watch within two weeks of receiving the link. If you are interested in watching our Zoom broadcast, and not a member, please see the “About” page on our website at www.thehardyplantgroup.org/about to download our membership form to join.

The Willamette Valley Hardy Plant Group is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) volunteer organization for gardeners of all experience levels. The Group is dedicated to educating the community about perennials, shrubs, and other plants for use in the garden, sharing each other’s gardens, and fostering a love of gardening. For more information, visit www.thehardyplantgroup.org.