Foodscaping visionary Brie Arthur headlines Arboretum Adventures at Spartanburg Community College
Foodscaping visionary Brie Arthur will be the featured speaker at Arboretum Adventures, an annual fundraising event for the horticulture department at Spartanburg Community College. The event will be held on Thursday, September 26, in the Tracy J. Gaines Auditorium on the SCC Central Campus.
Arthur is vice president of horticulture at Gardenuity, a direct-to-consumer on-line gardening company. She is author of The Foodscape Revolution, an entertaining and informative book that teaches which edible and ornamental pairings work best to increase biodiversity.
A passionate leader in the foodscape movement, Arthur speaks on a variety of horticulture topics around the country and has appeared as a correspondent on the PBS television show Growing A Greener World. Her foodscaping technique examines under-utilized garden spaces around homes or in the landscaped common areas of planned communities, looking for places where food can be inter-planted with non-food ornamental plants for year-round beauty.
The Foodscape Revolution presents ideas to reinvent the common landscape in a way that even HOA’s will sign off on. Arthur calls it “gardening in plain sight.” The book teaches how to situate beds to best utilize natural water and light resources, and how to begin an enriched gardening lifestyle that is beneficial, sustainable and empowering.
Arthur’s presentation during Arboretum Adventures in Spartanburg will encourage attendees to “think outside of the box” as they learn how pairing edibles in a traditional ornamental landscape increases biodiversity and adds purpose to everyday spaces.
“Foodscaping is a great way to get more people engaged in growing what they eat,” Arthur says. “By taking advantage of the available space within the existing landscape gardeners can maximize easy to access areas while adding a layer of purpose to their landscapes. Every plant that we grow is a contribution to the world at large, especially food crops. Anytime you can grow something you eat you help reduce the global food miles statistics! Even the simplest change of your grocery stores habits leads to more sustainable living.”
Arthur adds that bed edges are a great place to start with foodscpaing. Every landscape has an edge, and it is likely not planted. Bed edges are the easiest part of a landscape bed to access for planting, watering and harvesting and can be planted with things that deter browsing mammals.
Arthur’s presentation will be followed by a casual dinner and conversation. The evening’s proceeds benefit the Jimmy Painter Horticulture Scholarship at Spartanburg Community College.
Visit Spartanburg Community College Foundation for information on attending or sponsoring this event.
More about Brie Arthur
In 2017, Arthur was awarded the first ‘Emerging Professional’ distinction by the American Horticultural Society and was named in Grower Product News class of 2016 40 under 40. She is Vice-President of the International Plant Propagators Society Southern Region and will serve as President in 2020. Arthur also serves on the board of directors for the North Carolina Botanical Garden Foundation and served as GWA (Garden Writers of America) National Director of Region IV from 2015-2018, representing garden communicators across the southeast US.
Arthur’s second book, Gardening with Grains, will be available in 2019.
