Tours
Participants have a choice of two (2) tours on Friday, March 11.
Option 1
Two-Part Guided Garden Walking Tour
Tour Leaders at Hotel: Karen Snover-Clift and Jan Byrne
Tour Coordinators: Dave Clement and Mary Kay Malinoski
Fee: $15 Limit: 50
For this tour, participants will be led on two (2) separate guided walking tours at the National Mall in the morning: one at the Smithsonian Gardens and one at the U.S. Botanic Garden. In the afternoon, participants will be left to explore the Mall on their own. This tour will meet in the hotel lobby and travel together by Metro to the Mall where they will split into two smaller groups to tour each site separately.
(Please note: One group will begin at Site B and end at Site A.)
Metro passes included.
Site A: Beautiful Winter Gardens for Wildlife Habitat (Smithsonian Gardens)
Tour Leader: James Gagliardi, Horticulturist, Smithsonian Gardens
Just because it is winter does not mean that gardens or gardeners get a rest. At Smithsonian Gardens, 30 million visitors are welcomed year-round to the landscapes surround the Smithsonian museums along the National Mall. These visitors include many tourists but also wildlife as our gardens serve as an important urban habitat for birds, insects, and mammals. This tour will show how the gardens at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History maintain their appeal in winter beyond impressive annual displays of pansies, violas, and kale. This outdoor walking tour will highlight important garden features in this bleaker season including berries, grasses, seedheads, stems, bark, evergreens, and even some flowers.
Please note: Since this part of the tour is outdoors, be sure to dress appropriately.
Site B: Making IPM Work in Conservatory Displays (U.S. Botanic Garden)
Tour Leader: Jim Willmott, Plant Health Coordinator, U.S. Botanic Garden
Integrated pest management in conservatory displays requires specific applications of general principles to the unique variables of each display. While our approach includes a wider scope of biological and physical variables, this tour will focus on the practical management of key pests through chemical and biological control tactics – what has worked and what has not.
Option 2
USDA Facilities Bus Tour
Fee: $60 Limit: 50
Tour Leaders:
National Fungus Collection and NIS Labs - Dr. Lisa Castlebury and Dr. Megan Romberg
Systematic Entomology Labs - Dr. Cheryle O'Donnell
Bee Research Labs - Dr. Jay Evans
Tour Coordinators: Nancy Gregory, Clarissa Balbalian and Frank Hale
This full day tour of the USDA/ARS/APHIS facilities in Beltsville, MD will include stops and presentations at the Systematic Mycology and Microbiology laboratory, National Fungus Collection, Mycology Library, and National Identification Services covering morphological identification and DNA sequencing.
The Systematic Entomology laboratory and National Identifiers of thrips, scale, and eriophyid mites will be visited. After lunch the tour will conclude with presentations and tours of the USDA Bee Research Laboratory.
Includes boxed lunch.
