Plant-O-Rama: General Information

Plant-O-Rama 2025

PLANT-O-RAMA is Metro Hort Group’s annual Symposium, Trade Show & Career Fair for Horticulture Professionals. 

It is our largest program of the year attracting nearly 1,000 gardeners, designers, arborists, and educators working
in public parks, botanical gardens, & private gardens and landscapes in the New York City Tri-State region.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Symposium, Trade Show & Career Fair
9:00 am – 4:00 pm
At Brooklyn Botanic Garden

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Edwina von Gal
Founder, Perfect Earth Project, All Together Now: Collective Action in the Face of Climate Change & Biodiversity Loss

Edwina von Gal sounds a call for collective ecological action in the face of our fragile future. If all garden design and land care professionals made a solid commitment to harm-free practices, the benefits could be considerable. What could it look like? Literally, figuratively, ecologically. Why wouldn't we?

A leading voice in sustainable gardening and landscape design, Edwina von Gal founded the Perfect Earth Project in 2013 to promote nature-based, toxic-free land care for the health of people, their pets, and the planet. As principal of her eponymous landscape design firm, Edwina created landscapes with a focus on simplicity, sustainability, and beauty for private and public clients around the world. Her work has been published widely, including in The New York Times, Vogue, and Architectural Digest, and her book Fresh Cuts won the Quill and Trowel award for garden writing in 1998. In 2024, she was named one of the top 50 Creatives in America by Wallpaper magazine. She has served on boards and committees for a number of horticultural organizations and is currently on the board of What Is Missing, Maya Lin’s multifaceted media artwork about the loss of biodiversity, and is an honorary trustee of the Native Plant Trust. In 2022, she received the LongHouse Visionary Award from LongHouse Reserve. Her other awards include the New York School of Interior Design’s Green Design Award, the Isamu Noguchi Award, and Guild Hall's Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for the Visual Arts.

Ethan Kauffman
Director of Stoneleigh, Reimagining an Historic Landscape Using Native Plants & Sustainable Horticulture

Stoneleigh was established as a private estate in the 1870s in Villanova, PA. Much of the landscape structure that remains today, including grand vistas, a network of winding pathways, and multiple gardens and terraces, was envisioned by the Olmsted Brothers (sons of Frederick Law Olmsted) who were first retained in 1908 and continued to work on the estate’s landscape over the next 50 years.

Stoneleigh was donated to Natural Lands in 2016, a non-profit land conservation organization that saves open spaces, cares for nature, and connects people to the outdoors in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Since opening to the public in 2018, the 42-acre landscape has been continuously reimagined, including extensive additions of native plants and a strong focus on sustainable landscape practices. Recent efforts are underway to expand the garden by acquiring adjacent property that was part of the original estate up until the 1920s.

Ethan Kauffman developed his love of the natural world exploring the Susquehanna River hills in southeastern Pennsylvania. He cultivated his horticultural perspective over two decades of gardening in the Deep South, including working at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden and then as Director of Moore Farms Botanical Garden, where he led its transition from a private pleasure garden to a public botanical garden. In 2016 Ethan became the first Director of Stoneleigh.

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PANEL DISCUSSIONS

Managing Naturalistic Gardens & Landscapes: Tactics & Techniques

Four professional horticulturists discuss approaches to landscape management that can lead to the success and resiliency of naturalistic public gardens. Panelists highlight varied methods, challenges, and victories in efforts to drive long-lasting impact and balance to public landscapes, bringing NYC closer to a sustainable and ecologically functional future.

Moderator: Rashid Poulson (Brooklyn Bridge Park)
Panelists: Jessica Kaplan (Riverside Park Conservancy), Marni Majorelle (Alive Structures), Sarma Ozols (Trust for Governors Island), Pawel Pieluszynski (Brooklyn Bridge Park)

Rashid Paulson

Jessica Kaplan

Marni Majorelle

Sarma Ozols

Pawel Pieluszynski

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Cultivating Creativity: A Conversation with Artists & Horticulturists

Join us in a lively conversation on how art and horticulture can form meaningful connections that inspire. Perhaps more importantly than ever, artists and horticulturists are working together at the forefront of making the natural world and sustainability efforts accessible to common audiences.

Moderator: Stephanie Lucas, Madison Square Park Conservancy
Panelists: Patrick Costello (2024 Artist in Residence, Brooklyn Botanic Garden),
Jean Shin (Brooklyn-based Korean American artist), Lily Kwong (Landscape Artist, Urban Edenist & Founder of STUDIO LILY KWONG & Freedom Gardens)

Stephanie Lucas

Patrick Costello

Jean Shin

Lily Kwong