Plant Select Member Webinars 2025
As a Plant Select member, you and your staff are invited to participate in our member webinars below. Each of these webinars should take about an hour — plus up to 30 additional minutes for Q&A. We’ll add webinars as they’re scheduled.
Please use our Member Webinar Library to access past talks.
Aren’t a member yet? Become a Plant Select member here. Your membership helps fund diverse, climate-resilient plants—including native introductions—for more sustainable western landscapes. Our non-profit couldn’t exist without our members, and we thank you!
In the Garden With Grace: Plant Care Best Practices
Thursday, March 27 | 6-7:30 pm MT
You’re excited about Plant Select’s waterwise plant palette, but how do you help these plants thrive? Plus, what are some of the best ways to make your life easier in the garden, in addition to helping with plant longevity? Grace Johnson has worked in public ornamental horticulture since 2014 and has gardened with Plant Select plants since 2017. Join her as she shares her best practices for planting and garden maintenance in the Plant Select Demonstration Garden!
Grace will cover bare root planting, gravel vs. wood mulch, weeding best practices, pruning and deadheading, cutting back perennials (when and why) and considerations to protect plants over winter. She’ll also share some of her favorite Plant Select plants for western landscapes.
About our speaker:
Horticulturist Grace Johnson of Denver Botanic Gardens maintains the prairie gardens, Plant Select Demonstration Garden, unirrigated cactus collection, and historic iris collection at Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms. She also serves as Assistant Manager to the Horticulture Team. Previously, Grace worked in the Whitmire Wildflower Garden at Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve where she gardened exclusively with native plants and assisted with prairie restoration.
Grace has a passion for ecological and sustainable gardening, and plant conservation. She’s deeply interested in the impact of changing environmental conditions on horticulture. She has a BS degree in Environmental Science.
Register here >
The Spectrum of Gardens: What We’ve Learned as Plant-Driven Designers
Date TBD | 6-7:30 pm MT
How do we find the right balance between ecologically based designs, effective land stewardship (truly caring for the land, not just “maintaining” it) and very real financial costs? Join Emily Maeda of Tree of Life Designs as she explores how to strike the right chord!
In this talk, you’ll get a first-hand look at how Emily and her team have approached plant-driven designs (from inspiration, to methodology, to how to keep costs reasonable). She’ll share four case studies that highlight a wide spectrum of landscapes—ranging from a highly designed garden project to a fully seeded, ecologically driven, reclamation project—so you can see practical, real-life examples of how to find the right balance between ecology and cost for your clients’ design, build and stewardship needs.
While this presentation will be tailored to landscape professionals, all are welcome!
About our speaker:
Emily Maeda and her husband, Mark, founded Tree of Life Landscapes in 1998, building on their love of beauty, native plants, and good design. Emily is the vice president and creative director, in addition to being a landscape designer. She’s passionate about marrying beauty with practicality to create sustainable landscape designs. Her designs incorporate native and well-adapted plants that thrive year-round in our western extremes, while staying attuned to water conservation.
Emily Maeda grew up outside of Boulder, Colorado. She has seven children and is a trained pianist.
Registration link to come!
Behind the Scenes in the Plant Select Trial Gardens
** NEW DATE **
Thursday, April 24 | 6-7:15 pm MT
You know that Plant Select plants go through multiple years of trials and evaluation, but how does that process actually work?
Join Michael Guidi of Denver Botanic Gardens as he shares a “behind the scenes” look at the Plant Select plant trials and plant evaluation process. He also will provide insight into Denver Botanic Garden’s plant breeding program, ensuring our region has a robust supply of climate-resilient plants, as well as ongoing horticulture research at the Gardens.
About our speaker:
Michael Guidi is an ecologist, horticulture researcher and author. He oversees the Plant Select trials at Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms, as well as the Tissue Culture Lab and Horticulture Research program for Denver Botanic Gardens at the Chatfield Farms Trial Garden and Greenhouse.
Michael is a proponent of dynamic, self-sustaining gardens and green infrastructure as alternatives to static, high-maintenance landscaping. He worked as a field biologist before joining Denver Botanic Gardens. He holds an MS degree in Ecology from Colorado State University and a BS degree in Biology from Ithaca College.
Register here >
COMPLETED WEBINARS
Assisted Plant Migration: Bringing Endangered Trees to Northern Urban Forests
Thursday, February 20 | 6-7:30 pm MT
Climate scientists have created models on what our climate will be like in the next 50-75 years. (For example, it’s estimated that the climate in Fort Collins may be more like the Oklahoma or Texas panhandle.) As the West grows hotter and drier, many of the trees naturally growing across parts of our region likely won’t be able to survive the modeled extremes.
In the East, the US Forest Service has put together plans to help trees “migrate” north. But in the West, there hasn’t been a lot of effort put into assisted plant migration into forested areas due to ongoing drought. Instead, our urban forests likely offer the best option for assisted plant migration.
If you’re an urban forester, horticulturist or interested citizen, join Horticulturist Scott Skogerboe as he discusses how we can bring trees northward into our cities and create urban seed orchards, so we have trees that are more in line with future climate models. Scott will share examples of trees in migration, including Plant Select tree selections, and the benefits of creating “plant refugia” (sanctuaries) in urban environments.
About our speaker:
Scott Skogerboe is a nationally-recognized horticulturist and woody plant propagator. He has been the propagator at Fort Collins Wholesale Nursery for the last 30 years. He grows 300,000 trees and shrubs every year for sale to nurseries from Casper, Wyom. to Albuquerque, N.M. Previously, Scott was the owner of a small nursery specializing in fruit trees and berries adaptable to the rigors of growing on the high plains. In 2016, Scott was awarded “Commercial Horticulturist of the Year” by the American Horticultural Society. He has a BS degree in Landscape Horticulture.
Prior to becoming a horticulturist, Scott was a Sergeant in the US Army where he was a medic and a clinical specialist.
Best Practices for Fire-Resistant Landscaping
Thursday, February 27 | 6-7:30 pm MT
Fire-resistant landscapes don’t have to be desolate yards of rocks! At their best, they are strategically designed, lush, beautiful and well-maintained.
In this talk, Andrea Dorman of Idaho Firewise will share key principles behind fire-resistant landscape design and maintenance. She’ll also discuss essential plant considerations, such as why and where to use certain types of plants in your landscapes, and which types of plants to avoid.
About our speaker:
Horticulturist Andrea Dorman is the Southwest Idaho Program Manager for Idaho Firewise—a leading nonprofit in wildland fire education and preparedness in the Intermountain West. Andrea is passionate about waterwise and firewise landscape design and creating resilient landscapes that thrive in Idaho’s sagebrush steppe region.
Andrea develops firewise programs for the public and green industry, leads talks and educational opportunities, and engages volunteers and interns. She has an educational background in Horticulture and a degree in Geography and Environmental Science (Land Use Planning).
