2023 Bunny Mellon Garden Symposium, Part I: The Southern Highlands Reserve Native Plant Arboretum & Research Center

with Robert Balentine

In June 2023 the Southeast Chapter of the ICAA, in collaboration with the North Carolina Chapter, hosted the ICAA Southeast Bunny Mellon Garden Symposium - An Exploration of Southeastern Landscapes: Mountains to Prairies. Designers, students, and enthusiasts gathered for a three-day conference in Lake Toxaway, North Carolina, enjoying tours and lectures by preeminent experts in garden and landscape design.

The Symposium's first lecture was presented by Robert Balentine, who introduced the guests to the Southern Highlands Reserve, the nonprofit organization he founded with his wife Betty Balentine. Located in western North Carolina at an elevation of 4,500 feet, the Southern Highlands Reserve is a woodland garden that protects a unique ecosystem of the Blue Ridge Mountains through the preservation, cultivation, and display of plants native to the region and by advocating for their value through education, restoration, and research. In his lecture, Robert offers a brief history of the region's flora and fauna, and then presents a behind-the-scenes look at how the Reserve is working to protect these species today.

Robert Balentine is a life-long outdoor enthusiast and conservationist. He is the incoming board chair of The Garden Conservancy, whose board he joined in 2015, and the founding president of the Southeastern Horticultural Society. In 2002, Balentine and his wife, Betty, founded Southern Highlands Reserve as a woodland garden to integrate hands-on research and education with conservation of the ecology of the Southern Appalachian Mountains. In 2017, they received the Preservation Hero Award from the Library of American Landscape History.

Sponsors

Presented as part of the Bunny Mellon Curricula at the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art. The ICAA is very grateful to the Gerard B. Lambert Foundation for its generous support of this program, along with the Bunny Mellon Curricula Sponsors:

Lead Sponsor, Hollander Design Landscape Architects

Garden Symposium Sponsor, Kathryn M. and Ronald J. Herman Charitable Foundation

Garden Design Prize Sponsor, Harrison Design

Continuing Education and Public Programs Sponsor, Charlotte Moss

Film Series Sponsor, Janice Parker Landscape Architects

Additional support provided by ICAA Southeast and North Carolina Chapter Sponsors:

Gold Sponsor:

Liza Bryan Interiors

Silver Sponsors:

Alex Smith Garden Design, LTD

Howard Design Studio

Jacquelynne P. Lanham Designs

Lake Toxaway Company ~ Mo Mitchell & Mish Nichols

Marmi Stone

Pursley Dixon Architecture, Inc.

Friend Sponsors:

Green Visions Landscape

JALA Landscape Architecture

MATERIAL Bespoke Stone +Tile

Sharon K. Hopper Fine Gardening

Summerour Architects

The Outdoor Lights

Wyatt Childs, Inc.

In collaboration with the Southern Highlands Reserve:

Betty and Robert Balentine, Founders

Kelly Holdbrooks, Executive Director

Eric Kimbrel, Director of Horticulture

Tags: world of classicism, bunnymellon, sustainability