May Meeting of the Perennial Plant Society of Middle Tennessee
Guest Speaker: Jonathan Ertelt, Greenhouse Manager, Vanderbilt University
"Exploring the Tropics in Temperate Gardens"
Date: May 20, 2008
Time: 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Refreshments at 6:30 pm
Location: Massey Auditorium in Botanic Hall
Cheekwood Botanic Garden and Museum of Art
1200 Forest Park Drive
Nashville, TN 37205
FREE and open to the public.
Jonathan Ertelt received his B.A. from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN and spent the next 10 years working as Tropical Plant Curator and Botanical Education Coordinator for The Botanic Gardens at Cheekwood. He then moved to Charlotte, NC where he was Greenhouse Supervisor and Lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. In 1995 he returned to Nashville as Greenhouse Manager for Vanderbilt University and received his MEd in Science Education from Peabody College of Vanderbilt in 1999.
Jonathan regularly lectures for Vanderbilt Botany and Biology classes and is also involved in outreach teaching at Nashville schools and community centers. He teaches children about the basics of plants as well as about the rainforest and its ecosystem. He also has served as a consultant to Cheekwood, the Baltimore Zoo, and UNC at Charlotte, utilizing his expertise in tropical plants and amphibians to assist those organizations in the development of tropical habitat and rainforest simulation areas.
At his urban home in Nashville, Jonathan continuously experiments with new plants for our temperate middle Tennessee climate -- stretching the zone limitations of many tropicals to use them in his garden. An engaging and highly knowledgeable speaker, Jonathan will provide information on how to utilize tropical plants most effectively in temperate gardens, especially plants from the Gesneriad family, at the May 20 meeting.
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