The folks at McLaughlin Garden and Homestead are not waiting for spring to share gardening tips. A four-week lecture series on garden design, specialty species, pollinator survival and shore erosion protection launches March 5. Submitted photo

PARIS — Each Wednesday over the next month McLaughlin Garden and Homestead will preview spring pursuits for gardeners eager to start their 2025 planting and planning season.

People can attend in person or through live-stream Zoom presentations.

Each session runs from 4-5 p.m. Online attendees may access the conference link for each session from McLaughlin Garden’s events page, found here: https://mclaughlingarden.org/home/events/.

For those planning to attend at the homestead, tea and snacks will be served at 3:30 p.m.

The four-part series features familiar experts, with a week three introduction of Midcoast florist Dani Gent, who specializes in growing dahlias.

“Dahlias can be considered a whole genre of gardening by themselves,” said Corey Kotfila, McLaughlin’s horticulturalist. “There are hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of different cultivars.

“But it’s also kind of a niche in the gardening world. There are competitions for them. People who grow them can really get lost in them.”

The series kicks off March 5 when Cooperative Extension’s coordinator for horticultural training Sarah Long leads a talk focusing on her approaches for attracting pollinators to and creating resilience in her personal garden spaces. She will share stories about things that have worked well for her, but also sometimes not so well.

The following week Bev Stephens of West Paris will return the series to winter topics – through the eyes of bees. Stephens will discuss ways that bees are able to survive the cold and return to their pollinating missions in the spring. She and her husband J.J. entered beekeeping as a hobby that supported their mental health before founding their business, Old Glory Bees and Hone.

Shoreland gardening? McLaughlin Garden and Homestead teams up with Thompson Lake Environmental Association to incorporate erosion control vegetation strategies with lake living. Supplied photo

The final presentation March 26 offers the collaboration between Kotfila and Jim Skinner of the Thompson Lake Environmental Association to help lakeside dwellers utilize native vegetation to improve their shorelines.

McLaughlin Garden and TLEA developed Build Better Buffers as an outreach for homeowners to learn about planting native species for erosion control.

“Ecological gardening blends aesthetics with environmental stewardship,” Kotfila said. “It’s planting for pollinators and forage for animals; a holistic and environmentally sound approach to reduce erosion issues.”