Media invited to cover annual gathering at Embassy Suites Hotel
West Virginia Press Association
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Media are invited to attend and cover the West Virginia Nursery & Landscape Association’s (WVNLA) Winter Symposium from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 21, at the Embassy Suites Hotel in downtown Charleston. Julie Robinson, WVNLA executive director, will be on-site and can guide you to speakers and board members for interviews.
The two tracks of programming which feature national expert speakers will allow attendees to focus on both landscape design as well as green industry business development best practices. View the day’s schedule at wvnla.org.
Five WVU Students Will Be Awarded $12,500 in Scholarships
At the symposium luncheon, five college students studying horticulture and landscape design will be recognized and presented scholarships from its Marcus W. Rennix Memorial Scholarship program.
The students who will be recognized include:
- Sam Glazier of Charleston is a junior majoring in Landscape Architecture. He is a graduate of Starr’s Mill High School in Fayette County, Georgia.
- Hailey Lane of New Martinsville is a junior majoring in Horticulture. She graduated from Tyler Consolidated High School.
- Garrett Oursler of Morgan County is a junior studying Environmental Soils and Water Sciences with a minor in Horticulture. He graduated from Berkeley County High School.
- James Ranson of St. Albans is a graduate of St. Albans High School and is studying Landscape Architecture with minors in both Sustainable Design Studies and Sustainable Trail Development.
- Hayden Swain of Ravenswood is a senior in the Landscape Architecture program. He graduated from Ravenswood High School.
Business Development Speakers
Landscape business guru and motivational speaker Jeff McManus will provide powerful insights on how to grow great workforce teams. Author of the bestselling Growing Weeders into Leaders, McManus will present three topics. • “G.R.O.W. – Exploring Ways to Invest in and Grow Employees and Leaders in Any Organization • “Crew Leaders Aren’t Created – They’re Cultivated.” • “How Creating Your Company Core Values Will Attract and Retain Top Talent.”
For the day’s final business session, attendees will hear from Brian Branthoover of Halian & Associates, a successful landscaper in McHenry, Maryland about how he motivates his employees and encourages green industry careers.
Landscape and Design Speakers
Design speakers will address landscaping for climate change, tropical plants, pruning techniques and West Virginia’s own Little Missy boxwood and its introduction into the European market and famed gardens there.
Kim Eierman, founder of EcoBeneficial, will discuss “Taking Landscapes to the Next Level: From Leveraging Ecosystem Services to Changing Cultural Norms.” Kim teaches at the New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, The Native Plant Center and Massachusetts Horticultural Society. She is the author of The Pollinator Victory Garden: Win the War on Pollinator Decline with Ecological Gardening.
Marianne Wilburn, opinion columnist and author of Tropical Plants and How to Love Them and Big Dreams, Small Garden, will discuss “Tropical Fusion: Incorporating Tropical Textures in Temperate Gardens.” Wilburn is a contributing editor at GardenRant.com.
Former WVNLA president and board member Norman Cole is the third-generation owner of Cole Nurseries in Pipestem, W.Va. During his career, he has nurtured many boxwood cultivars, but the success of his patented Buxus microphyllya “Little Missy” has exceeded all expectations. Hear about the plant’s development and meteoric climb in popularity, despite the worldwide threat of boxwood blight. Cole and his wife, Missy (the cultivar’s namesake), have taken the West Virginia native plant to Europe, where Little Missys thrive in Paris, most notably at the Luxembourg Gardens, home of the French Senate.
Audra Egan, a regional project manager for Davey Resource Group in Ohio, will close out the day with a comprehensive program on pruning. Egan is an ISA Arborist, Certified Pesticide Licensed Applicator in Ohio, and OCNT Master Status with the Ohio Green Industry Association each for more than 20 years. She is an active ISA Ohio Chapter member.
