2009 St. Charles, IL Speakers & Topics

How Nymphaea “Siam Blue Hardy” was Born – Mr. Pairat Songpanich

  Mr. Pairat Songpanich, of Nonthaburi Province, Thailand will identify the challenges of growing hardy waterlilies in Thailand. Successes in cultivation will eventually lead him to experiments with hybridization. This path will take him to the ultimate quest of waterlily hybridizers for the past 100 years: the creation of the first blue hardy waterlily. Pairat will highlight his successes with crossing many different parent lilies including intersubgeneric hybrids which lead to the creation of N. “Siam Blue Hardy” and its siblings. Pairat will conclude his program with an introduction to his latest hybrids.

Photographing Aquatic Plants and Water Features – Gary Wittstock

Photos are a great way to capture & share the beauty of our Aquatic Paradises. These images are also essential for promoting your business & selling The Lifestyle in brochures, store displays and seminars. This class will help you best showcase your aquascape design talents and elicit some “WOW’s!” from your prospective buyers.

Bring your cameras, digital or film, and spend some time with our photo instructors taking pictures  of our ponds, waterfalls, lilies, fish and fountains. We’ll spend the first hour in the classroom going over camera functions, then head out to our AquaGardens for some hands-on practice. Tripods & extra lenses or auxiliary flashes are recommended but not required. You don’t have to get wet but the ponds will be open for closeups so wear shorts or a swim suit and old tennis shoes if you’d like to wade in.

Celebrating Water in the Landscape  - Cla Allgood

Cla will discuss how he approaches designing and building water features.  In addition to showing some of his various water feature projects, he will discuss the different client interactions, the design processes and the construction challenges. An early proponent of computer aided design, Cla will review some of the free programs that are used by Allgood Outdoors and that could be of help to other professionals and water garden enthusiasts.

Variegated Aquatics - Greg Speichert

Greg will showcase many of the variegated aquatic plants in production today as well as exploring various methods of inducing variegations in other aquatic plants. Greg will also be available for book signings of his book ‘Encyclopedia of Water Garden Plants’