Registration Fee: $290.00

Make your hotel reservations ASAP – a special rate of $169 plus taxes (includes breakfast for two people) is only guaranteed through August 22, 2024, or until our block of rooms is reserved. Please refer to American Conifer Society Meeting (or group code 93E) when making reservations.  Use this direct link for the special rate:

https://www.hilton.com/en/book/reservation/deeplink/?ctyhocn=PHLVFDT&groupCode=CDT93E&arrivaldate=2024-09-12&departuredate=2024-09-16&cid=OM,WW,HILTONLINK,EN,DirectLink&fromId=HILTONLINKDIRECT

Alloy King of Prussia, A DoubleTree by Hilton

301 West Dekalb Pike, King of Prussia, PA, 19406

1-855-610-TREE for reservations use code 93E

Agenda

Friday, September 13

Happy hour, dinner, and silent auction

Beth Brantley Presentation

Saturday, September 14          

Breakfast with meeting registration

Garden tours all day with lunch and bus transportation

Happy hour, dinner, and silent auction ends

Live auction

Sunday, September 15

Tailgate sale

Open gardens on your own

Pre & Post Tour Options - If you are arriving early or staying late, visit two unique gardens. More info here.

Airport – Philadelphia International Airport (PHL)

Hotel Parking – The hotel has free parking for meeting attendees staying at the convention hotel.

Plant Donations – Plant donations will be accepted on Friday, September 13^th until 4 pm. Please contact Ted Hildebrant ([email protected]) with a list of plants so auction tags can be prepped ahead of time.

Area Gardens – A list of great places to go before or after the meeting will be emailed closer to the meeting time.

Description

The Northeast Region of the American Conifer Society welcomes you back to the Philadelphia area in 2024 on September 13^th-14^th for our regional convention.  There was so much to see during the annual convention in 2022 that we just had to return to this hub of gardening.  We’ll be at the newly renovated Alloy, a DoubleTree by Hilton hotel, in King of Prussia, PA.

Friday evening welcomes conifer lovers with a buffet dinner, the opening of the silent auction, and our featured speaker.  Dr. Beth Brantley from Bartlett Tree Experts will be our keynote speaker with the timely topic of “Conifer Resiliency: Challenges in Times of Change.”  Dr. Brantley is an engaging speaker and will get you thinking about your garden in a different way.

We’ll start our Saturday morning at Cairnsgrove Gardens & Apiary in Pottstown, the eclectic garden of Rebecca and Dan Boylan.  The Boylans have been gardening here for over 35 years, and Dan added beekeeping to the mix about 16 years ago.  The garden is over half shade with unusual perennials, over 500 hostas, over 100 cultivars of epimediums, and rare plants tucked in wherever Rebecca can find room. Conifers and Clematis take up the sunny spots, both in the ground and in pots.  Lots of Pinus parviflora, hypertufa troughs that Rebecca makes, and large Cryptomeria japonicas which take center stage throughout the garden.  Especially note the 25-foot ‘Cristata’ off the patio, and the 45-foot ‘Yoshino’ behind the pond.

We then move on to Arader Tree Farm, a former working Christmas tree and pumpkin farm which has retained those traditions and more.  In 2021, Chris and Paige Arader purchased the farm which dates to the late 1700’s; the farmhouse was built circa 1802. There are 90 acres of conserved land with a one-acre pond. The Arader’s have dedicated and transformed approximately 15+ acres of the farm for Arader Tree Service to grow rare conifers, large sized shade trees, and ornamental trees. They have a combination of nursery and arboretum like settings where friends and customers can envision what the trees would look like in a home like setting. A few of the trees grown are specimen sized Weeping Norway Spruce, Oriental Spruce cultivars, 25-foot-tall Umbrella Pines and many other mature specimens not commonly found.

Our final stop for lunch and a tour is Scott Arboretum, the entire campus of Swarthmore College.  Conifers are located throughout the campus, but recently many new conifers have been added to the Pinetum area of the campus.  The Pinetum is part of arboretum founder John Wister’s original scheme of arranging plants in a great counterclockwise circle grouped according to their botanical family. This phylogenetic organization shows the evolutionary relatedness among the groups of plants.

The focus of the plants in the Pinetum is coniferous plants.  The plants are grouped by genus including Abies, Cedrus, Cephalotaxus, Chamaecyparis, xCuprocyparis, Juniperus, Larix, Metasequoia, Picea, Pinus, Pseudolarix, Thuja, and Tsuga.  More recently, several Gingos were added to represent Gymnosperms as a whole. While it is called the Pineturn, it contains hundreds of different kinds of conifers and illustrates the many kinds of coniferous trees from all over the world that can grow in the Delaware Valley.  Magnificent specimens include two 100-year-old+ Tanyosho pines, stately Taxodium, Metasequoia, Pseudolarix, and Cunninghammia.  Recent installations include several varieties of Cryptomeria, Thujopsis, Abies, Picea, and Chamaecyparis.

Meet for drinks on Saturday evening before the action heats up as bids close on the silent auction items.  Then get ready to fight over some spectacular plants after dinner as the live auction begins!  Our auction team always finds the greatest plants that you NEED to have in your garden, and cash, check and credit are all it takes to get them into the back of your car!

The fun isn’t over on Sunday morning as the tailgate sale takes place in the parking lot at 7 am.  Don’t be late as our fabulous nursery people have some unusual plants at great prices.

See you in September!