Gardening Experts to Host Book Discussion at Maine State Library

Augusta, Maine - As caretakers to the natural world around us, gardeners can promote biodiversity and fight species extinction by selecting the certain trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that nurture insects, birds, and amphibians and help create a self-regulated ecosystem.

On Tuesday, March 14 at 6:00 PM, Maine authors and gardening experts Reeser Manley and Marjorie Peronto will host a program at the Maine State Library to about ecologically-minded garden planning strategies. Admission is free and open to the public. The authors will remain after the presentation to sign books. Copies of their book will be available for purchase at the event.

Manley and Peronto recently published The Life in Your Garden, a must-read call to action for gardeners concerned about Earth's biodiversity crisis. The title is a follow-up to the duo's 2013 book, The New England Gardener's Year: A Month-by-Month Guide for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Upstate New York.

Reeser Manley has gardened in South Carolina, Washington state (while earning a Ph.D. in Horticultural Science), Massachusetts, and, for the last 15 years, in Maine. From 2007 through 2015, he wrote about the garden in a weekly column for the Bangor Daily News. He taught courses in horticulture at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the University of Maine, Orono. In 2013 he retired from teaching chemistry and physics at a small high school on the coast of Maine to devote his time to gardening and garden writing. Marjorie Peronto, a professor for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, has been teaching courses in fruit and vegetable gardening, ecological landscaping, and pruning for 26 years. She is a resource among her colleagues on native and invasive plants of the Northeast. Marjorie oversees Downeast Maine's Master Gardener Volunteers Program, training individuals to conduct community outreach projects that promote sustainable gardening and food security. She has developed nationally recognized school gardening courses for teachers.

For more information about the program, please contact the Maine State Library at 207-287-5600.