Join us on January 13th  for our general meeting and enjoy our speaker Ron Vanderhoff as he gives a presentation entitled, Gardens and Garden Centers: Gentle on the Planet.  Ron Vanderhoff is a lifelong southern California gardener, professional horticulturist and native plant expert. For forty years he has been a leader in the plant community and for the past twenty+ years at Roger’s Gardens in Newport Beach, where he is the General Manager and Vice President.

In this talk, Ron will discuss ways that the garden industry and the gardening community can work together to become great stewards of the planet. He will share examples from Roger’s Gardens and his own horticultural and botanical life and will explain the positive impacts from the plant choices we make, the ways in which we manage our gardens, the resources we use and impacts of our decisions. Ron will show positive examples of successes and opportunities, so that all of us can garden not only for a beautiful result, but with a gentler impact on the planet.

Within the gardening community, Ron has served in many forms, including both state and local positions with The California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers, the California ReLeaf Committee and the Orange County Great Park.

Ron is a past Chairman of California’s Certified Nursery Professionals and has contributed to several publications on plants, horticulture and other natural history subjects, including The Sunset Western Garden Book and the Wildflowers of Orange County and the Santa Ana Mountains. He is a member of several advisory committees, including for the UCI School of Biological Sciences, the California Invasive Plant Council,Saddleback and Orange Coast College Horticulture Departments and UC’s statewide Integrated Pest Management. He is a state director of Calflora and officer of the Orange County Chapter of the CA Native Plant Society.

Ron’s passion for nature also lies in our wild spaces and he is a leading expert researching, photographing and documenting our native flora. At the Orange County Chapter of the California Native Plant Society he is their Plant Science Chair and member of Invasive Plant and Rare Plant Committees

Photo credit: Sara Hall

Questions? We’d love to hear from you!