Overview:
Join horticulturist and flower bulb grower Jason Delaney and the OSGF Library staff for a richly illustrated and immersive lecture on the storied history of a timeless garden favorite, the tulip. Drawing from five centuries' worth of lavish content in the OSGF Library’s rare and antiquarian holdings, Jason will enlighten participants on the tulip’s wild origins, its artistic historical representation, its early commercial aspects as the first speculative commodity, and its place in Bunny Mellon’s gardens today.
Tickets: $125
About Oak Spring Garden Foundation: The Oak Spring Garden Foundation (OSGF) is a philanthropic foundation based at the former primary estate of the late Paul and Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, who were major philanthropists in the U.S. of the arts, humanities, and sciences in the second half of the twentieth century. OSGF is located in the northern Virginia Piedmont and Blue Ridge Mountains region (ca. one-hour drive from Washington, D.C.). Led by Sir Peter Crane, the Foundation’s inaugural President, OSGF provides workshops, short courses and supports residencies for artists and scholars. Its celebrated Library comprises rare books, manuscripts and works of art relating to horticulture, landscape design, botany and natural history. It is becoming a new center of stimulation of all things botanical, from fundamental research in plant evolution and conservation, to horticultural and plant conservation practice, to the history and art of plants, gardens and landscapes.
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Availability: The lecture will be capped at 25 participants. Registrations will be accepted on a rolling basis through Eventbrite until full.
A graduate of Michigan State University’s Institute of Agricultural Technology, Jason Delaney’s horticultural career began as a student laborer at MSU’s Beal Botanical Garden where his love of public gardening was planted. Following a summer internship at the world-renowned Missouri Botanical Garden in 1995, he accepted a full-time position there and for the next nearly 21 colorful years grew from Gardener to Horticulturist, and ultimately to North Gardens Supervisor and Bulb Collections Specialist. During his tenure curating MBG’s bulb, daylily, and iris collections, among others, Jason participated in conservation-focused plant collecting expeditions to the Altai mountains of southern Siberia, the Caucasus Mountains of the Republic of Georgia, the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco, and the Changbaishan Mountains in northeastern China. Jason has also traveled to Taiwan, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and extensively throughout the U.S. for his work with daffodils, his greatest passion. Jason’s work with bulbs has been featured in numerous magazines, journals, newspapers, and television programs. Today, Jason owns and operates Professional Horticultural Services (PHS), specializing in residential garden design and maintenance; and PHS Daffodils, specializing in daffodil production. Jason’s prized plant collections are situated on nearly four acres of family land in Flora, IL where over 3,500 varieties of daffodils, over 1,500 varieties of daylilies, and a few hundred historic irises are grown for small-scale commercial production, breeding, and evaluation. Collecting novel garden varieties and historic varieties for genetic preservation are his primary foci. Jason has been breeding daffodils and daylilies, and dabbling in breeding trumpet lilies and crinums, since the 1990s; a few of his cultivars are now in commercial production. Jason made his first flower bulb order at the age of four, and has yet to learn restraint from acquiring new bulbs annually. Follow his adventures on his Instagram accounts, phsdaffodils and phsdaylilies.
