Tropical Gardening in NJ — Yes, It Can Be Done! Program in Harrington Park

The Garden Club of Harrington Park will host its next meeting on Thursday, October 3rd, at 7:30 pm at the Harrington Park Library, 10 Herring Street in Harrington Park.  This month’s guest speaker is John Beirne, Curatorial Director of Horticulture and Facilities at the Reeves-Reed Arboretum.

John will share his passion for audacious tropical plants, including indoor plants that he can turn into showy outdoor annuals. He will convince the uninitiated that equatorial plants are the perfect autumnal alternative to mounds of mums and heads of flowering kale. While other gardens have closed for the season, tropicals glow like a supernova until November’s killing frost. 

John Beirne is the Curatorial Director of Horticulture and Facilities at the Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit NJ.  He was  formerly the Superintendent of Horticulture at Willowwood Arboretum and Bamboo Brook Nature Center, both in Gladstone, NJ, and part of the Morris County Park System.  He worked for twenty years as the developer and manager of project Enrich, a Horticultural Therapy program at NewBridge Services, a behavioral health center in Pompton Plains, NJ.  John also worked as a Horticultural Therapist at The Childrens Institute in Verona, NJ, a school for children with special needs.  John has been an instructor at the NYBG Continuing Education Program in Bronx, NY, for over twenty years and currently is an Instructor of Horticulture at Sussex Community College in Newton, N.J.

Early in his career John interned at Wave Hill, a public garden in Bronx, NY, and as an assistant Garden Editor at Martha Stewart Omnimedia in NYC and Westport, Connecticut.  John lives in Sussex County with his wife Hilary and children where he enjoys gardening, photography and being the steward of a 5-acre woodland on his property.

The program will be followed by a “Q & A” session and refreshments.  Hostess for the evening will be Gerri Gibney.  

The GCHP welcomes all gardeners, active or armchair, from all towns.   

For more information, contact GCHP President Gerri Gibney at 201-768-2615 or log on to: http://www.gardenclubofharringtonpark.com/.