Garden Club Conservation Forum at Constant Center

November 03, 2014

ODU's Lytton Musselman will be a speaker at the forum.

The 56th Annual Garden Club of Virginia Conservation Forum, which will explore the topic "Trees: Virginia's Remarkable, Renewable Resource," will be Wednesday, Nov. 12, at the Ted Constant Convocation Center on the Old Dominion University campus.

Speakers will include Lytton John Musselman, ODU's Mary Payne Hogan Professor of Botany; Bettina Ring, who earlier this year became the first woman to take the helm of the Virginia Department of Forestry; Richard Olsen, lead scientist for the urban tree breeding and germplasm research programs at the U.S. National Arboretum and the Arboretum's acting director; and Nancy Ross Hugo, author of "Remarkable Trees of Virginia" and "Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secret Lives of Everyday Trees."

The forum is open to the public; a $50 per person admission charge is required, which covers a light breakfast, refreshments and lunch. Student admission is free, but does not include lunch. Registration is requested by Nov. 6 via http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07e9vmjd42af2a4dc8&llr=g4quzjcab.

Check-in will begin at 8:30 a.m. before opening remarks at 9:30 by Jeanette Cadwallender, the president of the, Garden Club of Virginia, and Anne Beals, chairman of the Conservation Forum.

Musselman will speak at 9:45 a.m. on "The Tree that Built Tidewater - The Neglected Role of Longleaf Pine in Virginia's History." Bing's overview of "The Management and Care of Virginia's Forest Resource" will begin at 10:20 a.m.; Olsen's presentation on "Urban Forests" will be at 11:45 a.m.; and Hugo's talk on "Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secret Lives of Everyday Trees" will begin at 12:20 p.m.