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MGSOC Educational Conferences

Join us for our 12th Annual Education Garden Conference

Gardening And All That Jazz – Designing a Better World

Saturday, April 25, 2026, 7:30 AM – 4:45 PM

The Master Gardener Society of Oakland County, Inc. is pleased to present our 12th Annual Education Conference – Gardening and All That Jazz – Designing a Better World. Our legendary conference features four nationally-known horticultural speakers (three will be selling and signing their books), a world-class marketplace with vendors, morning refreshments and lunch, and the Scott Gwinnell Trio performing during lunch. This year’s event is competitively priced and open to ALL gardeners, you do not need to be a Master Gardener to attend. Join us!

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Our conferences are offered to all who love to garden

All skill levels are welcome, and you need not be a Master Gardener to attend. Master Gardeners receive 5 hours CE Credit.

Chair: Betty Peters

2026 Keynote Speakers

Alan Branhagan sb-min
Alan Branhagen

Grow Native Landscape Solutions – Midwestern Native Plants for Challenging Landscape Situations

Topic Info
Speaker Bio
Carol Reese sb-min
Carol Reese

Just Do It! Create a Lifestyle Landscape

Topic Info
Speaker Bio
Jack Barnwell sb-min
Jack Barnwell

Landscaping Design from Northern Michigan to Southern Florida – tips and tricks to create a fuctional and creative landscape space

Topic Info
Speaker Bio
Page Dickey sb-min
Page Dickey

Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again

Topic Info
Speaker Bio
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Registration Information

The 2026 MGSOC Education Conference will be held at The Oakland Center, Oakland University, 312 Meadow Brook Rd., Rochester, MI 48309

  • Registration Fee: $95 by check, $95 + $8.22 Fees on Eventbrite
  • Cancellation Policy: No refunds are granted.
  • Registration Deadline: Midnight, Monday, April 10, 2026 (Checks must be received by this date).
  • Registration options:
    • Register online: buy tickets here on eventbrite – $95 + $8.22 fees
    • Register by mail: mail print form and check (made payable to MGSOC, Inc.) to Dianah Foster, Treasurer, MGSOC, 2475 Dorfield Dr., Rochester Hills, MI 48307
  • Please direct conference registration questions to Ann Hudak:
    Phone (248) 812-9437, E-mail: mgsoc.conference@gmail.com
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Conference Agenda

Conference begins promptly at 8:45 a.m.

Each presentation will be one hour long, with a 15-minute Q&A.

7:30 AM - Doors open. Continental breakfast and refreshments will be served.

Bob Iiames

Conifers for Today’s Gardens

Charlie Nardozzi

A New Look at Ecological Gardening and Companion Planting

Stacey Hirvela

Seeing Shrubs: A Celebration of the “Backbone of the Garden”

Susan Martin

An Insiders Guide to Buying the Best Plants

5:00 PM - Conference Closes

Conference Agenda (PDF Version)

Our Sponsors

Past Conferences

MGSOC Conference Speakers – 2013-2025
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Grow Native Landscape Solutions – Midwestern Native Plants for Challenging Landscape Situations

The Flora of the Midwest has a plant for every niche: from desert-like glade to flooded swamp. Plants grow in clumps or run (spread by stolons or rhizomes) into extensive thickets. Trees can be understory and small to towering giants. Mother Nature fills every void. This program will offer some ideas on how to utilize the attributes of our native flora to find solutions for challenging landscape situations. From streetside hellstrips to poorly drained swales – from under power lines to steep banks there are native plants available to perform for you.

Alan Branhagen Bio:

Alan Branhagen is the Executive Director (since July 2023) of the Natural Land Institute in Rockford, Illinois. It is one of the nation’s first land trusts and organization whose founder, George B. Fell, started the legally protected concept of nature preserves beginning with the Illinois Nature Preserves Commission more than 60 years ago. NLI has been responsible for protecting more than 19,000 acres of natural land in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Alan was Director of Operations at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul (America’s 15th largest public botanical garden) from 2017-2023 where he managed Horticulture, Plant Curation, and Natural Resource Management of the 1,200-acre site as well as its over 200,000 square feet of Facilities.

From 1996-2017 Alan was Director of Horticulture at Powell Gardens, Kansas City’s botanical garden where he directed all horticulture and site planning as well as resource management of the 915-acre site.

Alan’s career began at the Forest Preserves of Winnebago County in Rockford, Illinois where for almost a decade he directed all forest preserves’ planning, development and management. He was part of the beginning of the Klehm Arboretum which launched his public horticulture career. Alan’s career has come full circle back to Rockford.

Alan has a Bachelors of Landscape Architecture from Iowa State University and a Masters of Landscape Architecture from Louisiana State University. He is an all-around plantsman and naturalist specializing in Birds, Butterflies, Botany, and planning and design with Nature. He is the author of 3 books: The Gardeners Butterfly Book, Native Plants of the Midwest and The Midwest Native Plant Primer.

Just Do It! Create a Lifestyle Landscape

Intimidated by lofty landscape principles? Let Carol trash the idea that there is a “right” way, and help you develop a fun, productive philosophy that guides your choices and forgives “mistakes.” Her inspirational slides show creative and solution landscapes, both for those with deep pockets and those with tight budgets. Would life be better with spaces for entertainment or edibles? … or privacy screens designed for multi-seasonal beauty, that also provide a haven for birds and pollinators? … or a safe place for pets and kids to run and play? This funny, wise and motivational talk will have you looking at your landscape with fresh eyes as a place that gracefully evolves with lifestyle changes instead of a plan that stays frozen to a place in time.

Carol Reese Bio:

Carol Reese feels that formal credentials can be boring (or even discrediting!) but admits to being a retired Extension Horticulture Specialist with the University of Tennessee for 27 years. Yes, she has degrees in Horticulture from Mississippi State, and could have even added a Ph.D if she “had ever written that damn dissertation.” 

While there, she taught classes in Plant Materials, and co-taught Landscape Design for non-LA majors alongside a “real” landscape architect, her dear friend Ginny Fletcher – to classes who must have been confused by being taught by one woman with a British accent and another woman who was a fifth generation Mississippian. These academic experiences were valuable but Carol will say that her most valuable insights can be attributed to being raised on a farm by generations of plant nuts, including a grandfather who dynamited his garden spot each spring to “break up his hard pan.” Likewise, her very personal appreciation of natural lore is at least partially a result of her observations during near daily rambles through wild areas near her home with her motley collection of mutts, also known as the strong-willed breed of “Amalgamations.”  

Carol has been a newspaper garden columnist, the Q&A columnist for Horticulture magazine “back in the day,” and the horticulture editor for Tennessee Gardening, co-authored the UT Extension Master Gardener Handbook, writes freelance for other magazines, and lectures around the nation. She is working on a book she hopes will help her figure out how she saved enough brain cells from her party years to cobble together a rewarding career that eventually enabled her to build a secluded haven for homeless dogs and their human friend.  

Landscaping Design from Northern Michigan to Southern Florida – tips and tricks to creating a functional and creative landscape space

This presentation explores Jack Barnwell’s diverse landscape architecture work spanning Northern Michigan to Southern Florida, highlighting the breadth of climates, ecologies, and cultural contexts that shape each project. It examines the unique challenges of designing in dramatically different environments—from cold-hardy, lake-influenced landscapes to subtropical sites defined by heat, humidity, and storms. The work reveals how these constraints become opportunities for creativity, resilience, and place-specific expression. Through built examples, the presentation celebrates the excitement of translating regional character, client vision, and environmental responsibility into thoughtful, enduring landscapes.”

Jack Barnwell Bio:

Jack is a Landscape Architect, author, pilot, and proud father of two boys working in both Northern Michigan and Naples, Florida.  As owner of Jack Barnwell Design, his landscape design company, Jack has over 20 years of experience creating breathtaking commercial and private garden displays in stunning locations across the country. One of his first companies, Barnwell Landscape and Garden on Mackinac Island, Michigan, was responsible for the annual planting and maintenance of thousands of flats of flowers, as well as the design and implementation of many of the island’s premier landscape projects.  Because of the complete ban on motor vehicles on Mackinac Island, most of Jack’s landscape construction work had to be done without the use of trucks and machinery.  Plants and materials are brought to the Island by boat and moved on location by horse and bike power.  His plantings have received top honors at the Cincinnati Flower Show, Chicago Flower Show, and Grand Rapids Flower shows taking home awards for Best in Show. 

Jack’s work has been featured in many publications, including Landscape Management Magazine, and Traverse Magazine where he was recognized as Northern Michigan’s “Red Hot Best” Landscaper.

As a consultant for Proven Winners®, the world’s number one plant brand, Jack contributes to the design of beautiful gardens at prestigious properties all over the United States. His work with them has brought the Proven Winners® Signature Garden program as well as a Certified Landscape Professional program into fruition.

In 2014, Jack created a new venture and is now Partner and Lead Designer of C3 Gardens, LLC in Southwest Florida. C3 specializes in the Design, Installation, and Maintenance of exquisite container plantings for Commercial and Residential properties featuring and utilizing Jack’s patented AquaPots® planters. AquaPots® are self-watering planters that work extremely well, especially in the South Florida sun. This allowed his C3 Gardens company to scale up quickly and thrive. 

His design company, Jack Barnwell Design, is where he puts the bulk of his passion, offering Landscape design services, management, and consulting on projects big and small all over the country. Jack, and his two boys, Reed and River enjoy the seasonal life between Northern Michigan and Naples, and they are greatly appreciative of all the dedicated staff, friends, and family that have made it all possible.

Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again

Page Dickey, one of America’s best-known garden writers, shares her intimate, lesson-filled story of moving away from her celebrated garden of 34 years at Duck Hill, in North Salem. In her 70’s and needing to simplify her life and garden, she feels transplanted and begins again! Page shares her development and evolution in the 17 acres of fields and woodlands where she began a new garden and the stewardship of a wilder, larger landscape. It is a story for anyone who has had to begin anew – in gardening or in life.

Page Dickey Bio:

Page has been gardening passionately since her early twenties, and writing about gardening, as well as designing gardens for others, for the last three decades. She has written eight books and edited another. Most of her books concentrate on aspects of garden design such as creating gardens that reflect their settings (Gardens in the Spirit of Place and Breaking Ground) or planning gardens as extensions of our homes (Inside Out), in each case illustrated by exceptional examples around America. Duck Hill Journal and Embroidered Ground are about Duck Hill where she lived for thirty-four years, about the process of making the garden there, and her thoughts on gardening in general. Page was the editor of the book Outstanding American Gardens, celebrating 25 years of the Garden Conservancy with photographs by Marion Brenner. Her new book, Uprooted: A Gardener Reflects on Beginning Again, describes leaving a beloved garden of thirty-four years, finding a home in the northwest corner of Connecticut, and falling in love with its land.

Page lectures around the country about plants and garden design, and has written many articles for magazines over the years, including House and Garden, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Horticulture, Elle Décor, Garden Design, and The New York Times.

She is a Director Emeritus of the Garden Conservancy and is one of the two founders of its Open Days Program. She also serves on the Boards of Stonecrop Garden in Cold Spring, NY, Hollister House Garden in Washington, CT, and The Little Guild in Cornwall, CT. She and her husband are both members of the Friends of Horticulture at Wave Hill. Page was recently elected as an Honorary Member of The Garden Club of America.

In 2015, Page and her husband Bosco Schell moved to Falls Village, Connecticut, to an old church with 17 acres of fields and woods and a view of the Berkshire foothills. They are off on a new gardening adventure.