Oklahoma Gardening School: Weathering the Storm & Rooting Resilience

Saturday, March 7, 2026

Oklahoma Gardening School: Weathering the Storm and Rooting Resilience

Sponsored by Squeeze Every Drop and Calvert’s Plant Interiors.

Myriad Botanical Gardens’ annual Oklahoma Gardening School is the state’s premier annual horticultural symposium designed for home gardeners and professional horticulturists, garden designers, and landscape architects.

Oklahoma is no stranger to challenges out in the garden. Whether we’re combatting sudden hail or wind storms, visiting every season in a single day, or battling bugs that see our hard work as their dream buffet, it can sometimes seem like we’re fighting a never ending battle. Join us for a half day with the experts as we discuss strategies to mitigate damage, respond when trouble arises, or sometimes just to know when to throw in the towel and try something different. This year’s format will feature our keynote speaker, Daria McKelvey of Missouri Botanic Gardens, and a selection of breakout sessions that you can select from to tailor your experience to your own needs and interests.

Lunch is provided. Please provide any dietary restrictions upon registration and we will do our best to accommodate them.

Registration for Oklahoma Gardening School closes Monday, March 2 at 12:00 PM.

REGISTRATION
$50 Myriad Gardens Member
$80 Nonmember

Want to stretch your experience a little further? Sign up for our premium workshop add on with Daria McKelvey, Botanical Battles: Managing Garden Pests and Diseases happening after wrap up at 2:00 PM.
Spots are limited, so register today!

$15 Myriad Gardens Member
$18 Nonmember

SCHEDULE

Saturday, March 7

8:15 – 9:00 AM – Breakfast and Registration at the Park House Event Center at Myriad Botanical Gardens

9:00 – 9:10 AM – Welcome

9:20 – 10:20 AM – Breakout Session 1
Inside Crystal Bridge

Option 1
Elizabeth Bland-Corbishley with Oklahoma Forestry Services
Pruning for Sturdy, Resilient Trees
Strong trees start with smart cuts. Join this talk to learn how strategic pruning can help trees withstand storms, minimize failure, and bounce back after extreme weather events.

Option 2
Amy Seiger with Oklahoma Conservation Commission
Hope is Within the Soil System
Developing the right ecosystem on the landscape you manage will help support life beyond climate and weather changes.  Plants and soil work in a symbiotic relationship with each other.  Learn to understand the relationship between soil and plants and what can assist your landscape in becoming more resilient.  

Option 3
Bo Bohanon with OKIE811
Homeowners: Digging In!
Homeowners: Digging In! introduces homeowners to OKIE811 and safe digging practices! Throughout this workshop, participants will explore the OKIE811 process, the presence of underground utilities, and safe digging practices. By the end of the session, homeowners will know just the steps to take before digging in!

Option 4
Micah Friedman with Oklahoma Native Plant Society
Native Strength: A Journey of Resilience Down the Deep Fork River
Starting with the headwaters in Warr Acres and traveling east in to rural Oklahoma, the Deep Fork River is a thriving community of both non-native plants in developed areas and native plants promoting an ecosystem of resilience and teeming with life. Learn more about these native plants, their resilience, ecology, and importance. Enjoy a photographic journey down the river as you discover native plants to consider for your garden and how native plants help build a foundation for a thriving and ecologically-supportive garden.

10:30 – 11:30 AM – Breakout Session 2
Inside Crystal Bridge

Option 1
Elizabeth Bland-Corbishley with Oklahoma Forestry Services
Right Tree, Right Place: The Power of Native Trees
The best tree is the one that belongs there. Discover how matching native trees to the right place improves survival, reduces maintenance, and supports healthy, resilient local ecosystems.

Option 2
Julia Laughlin with OSU Cooperative Extension Service
Beat the Heat – the Water Wise Landscape
Certain cultural practices and plant selections can help increase the resilience of your garden and landscape during summer droughts and Oklahoma heat. Participants will learn about best planting practices, soil improvement, and mulching techniques to increase water retention, as well as selections of the very best performing annuals, perennials, and landscape plants to help combat our often harsh summers.

Option 3
Matthew Janda, Chief of Horticulture & Grounds with Scissortail Park & Myriad Gardens
From the Ground Up: A Park’s Journey Over the First Five Years
Scissortail Park is a world class outdoor space that welcomes people from all over the world to its grounds every year, but it started just like any garden project would. Join Matthew Janda, Chief of Horticulture and Grounds, as he provides a glimpse in to the journey from inception through groundbreaking to the wildflower meadows, Parterre gardens, hills, and activity lawns you know and love today.

Option 4
Tour of Myriad Botanical Gardens with Paul Nehls
Oklahoma Proven, Myriad Practiced
The Myriad Gardens features a connected network of hardworking horticulturists laboring with love every day. Join our head horticulturist Paul Nehls as he provides a historical context for the trials, tricks, and pivots of our beautiful grounds on a walking tour of the gardens. Enjoy an interactive discussion on plant selection, ground development, real examples of past or ongoing problems and solutions, and ways our individual gardens have adapted and changed throughout the years to not only survive but thrive.

11:30 AM – 1:00 PM – Lunch, Networking, Keynote Speaker, and Visiting Vendors

Keynote Talk (12:15 – 1PM)

Daria McKelvey, Missouri Botanical Garden

Park House Event Center

Keeping Calm and Gardening On

In today’s world of glossy gardening magazines and social media scrolling, we are besieged with images of perfect landscapes, where every plant is miraculously blemish and problem free, and weeds are somehow nonexistent. Then we become frustrated when our gardens don’t look like this. The truth is, they never will. Floppy plants, chewed leaves, and most certainly weeds are all part of the gardening experience! Let’s look at ways to embrace all of gardening’s challenges and learn to work with nature, instead of against it, to cultivate a more joyful gardening experience.

1:00 – 1:30 PM – Wrap up, questions, and final booth visits

Optional Premium Workshop (2:00 – 4:00 PM)

Daria McKelvey, Missouri Botanical Garden

Park House Event Center

Botanical Battles: Managing Garden Pests and Diseases

Are your plants plagued by pests? Do diseases leave you in despair? In this workshop, we will walk through the diagnostic process and look at some of the most common problems that affect plants in the home garden. We’ll also discuss how we can prevent and manage issues through integrated pest management strategies (IPM) to keep your plants happy and healthy!

OPTIONAL PREMIUM WORKSHOP
$15 Myriad Gardens Member

$18 Nonmember

Daria McKelvey, Missouri Botanical Garden

Daria McKelvey is originally from Texas and received her B.S. in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and her M.S. in Horticulture from Texas Tech University. At the Missouri Botanical Garden, she oversees the Horticulture Answer Services (walk-in, phone, and email). She also assists with managing the Gardening Help website, Plant Finder Database, and provides gardening talks to local and regional organizations. She is a true “plant nerd” and enjoys teaching others about plants and how incredible they are. In her spare time, she enjoys botanizing, looking for plant galls, hiking, and nature photography.