We are very excited to welcome Vincent Simeone to this years Summer Plant Symposium, August 12, at the Rutgers Gardens.
Vincent has
worked in the horticultural field for over 27 years. He received an AAS degree
in ornamental horticulture from SUNY Farmingdale, Farmingdale, New York and a
BS in ornamental horticulture from the University of Georgia, Athens, GA. While
at Georgia, Vincent studied under well-known professors Dr. Michael Dirr and
Dr. Allan Armitage. Vincent also obtained a Masters Degree in Public
Administration from C.W. Post- Long Island University in 2003. Vincent has
specialized expertise in woody plant id, culture, use and selection of superior
varieties. Vincent is an experienced lecturer, instructor and horticultural
consultant. He has spoken to many groups nation wide and has appeared on
several garden shows including Martha Stewart Living and HGTV.
Annually
Vincent presents an average of 50 horticultural lectures, workshops and tours
to garden clubs, plant societies, professional landscape, nursery and arboricultural
trade associations and academic institutions. Topics range from plant,
identification, woody plant selection and use, historic landscape preservation
and general plant maintenance and care. Vincent teaches horticulture classes at
New York Botanical Garden and Hofstra University and taught Woody plants I and
II at SUNY Farmingdale from 1988 to 2007.
Over the
last 14 years, Vincent has assisted Allan Armitage with garden tours through Southern
England, Northern France, Southern Germany, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa and Sweden. Vincent is very active in local and national organizations
including The American Public Garden Association, New York Hortus Club, New
York State Arborist, ISA Chapter, Long Island Arboricultural Assoc., Long Island
Holly Society, American Rhododendron Society-New York Chapter, Nassau Suffolk
Landscape Gardeners Assoc., and the Long Island Nursery and Landscape Assoc.
Vincent serves on several committees including the Gold medal Plant Award Committee
and the LINLA Landscape Awards Committee and is the former chairman of the APGA
Plant Collections Committee.
For the past 22 years Vincent has worked in public
horticulture at Planting Fields Arboretum State Historic Park in New York where
he is the Director. At Planting Fields Vincent has helped to coordinate several
large horticultural and educational symposia and special events including
several national flower shows and conventions, landscape preservation
conferences, tree conferences and conferences to promote new garden trends in
the field of horticulture. He has written and contributed to various gardening
articles for magazines and newspapers including the Long Island based
newspaper, Newsday. Since 2005 he has published four books: Great Flowering
Landscape Shrubs, Great Flowering Landscape Trees, Great Landscape Evergreens
and The Wonders of the Winter Landscape. In 2010 Vincent contributed to a first
ever textbook on public garden management. Also in 2010, the Long Island
Nursery and Landscape Association honored Vincent as Man of the Year. In 2013,
Vincent published his 5th book on garden sustainability.
Registration and complete event information will be available in June. Stay tuned to NJNLA.org for all the latest information about this growing summer event for the green industry.