Pam Beck

Garden Writer, Lecturer, and Photographer

 
 

 

 

Pam Beck during her booksigning at Quail Ridge Books.

Beck Lecture

View Current Lecture Schedule

For speaking engagements, see the Speaker Introduction (Doc).

Also see the "Garden Speaker Host Etiquette: A Guide to Proper Communication, Care, and Feeding of Your Speaker" (included with permission from the Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. website) for helpful tips on how to schedule a talk and host a professional Garden Lecturer.


Pam Beck enhances each of her lectures with her own collection of beautiful slides. Contact Pam regarding speaking fees and availability.

Pam Beck speaking about Plants of the Winter Holidays at Orvis in Raleigh, NC.

Orvis Talk

Popular Lecture Topics

 


BEST GARDEN PLANTS FOR NORTH CAROLINA – This lecture recommends some of the best landscape plants that are sure to thrive in the Old North State for both new gardeners and newly transplanted gardeners. Many of these plants will be old familiar friends, and a large number are native plants, but none will be invasive or too difficult to grow successfully. Slides.

CHANGE HOW YOU GARDEN -- It is time to reevaluate your landscape and your relationship with it. Let's plan for sustainable urban landscapes filled with healthy plants. It is time for realistic gardens that are maintainable, water wise, nature friendly, and food producing, created with a holistic approach. This lecture with slides is filled with practical suggestions to apply in your own outdoor habitat.

COMBINING PERENNIALS – This slide-driven lecture will illustrate colorful successful combinations of perennials for everything from sunny sites to shady niches. How to choose interesting plants for texture, color, and leaf shape will be covered as well as some hints for those personal touches that really make a garden.

FINE VINES – Various vines and climbers add height, flower, and foliage interest throughout the landscape in a unique way, by traveling vertically. Vines lift the eye, frame entrances, soften edges, and enhance ordinary buildings. This popular slide lecture will encourage you to climb to new heights while embellishing your own "de-vine" garden.

FROM INSPIRATION TO PUBLICATION –You want to become a non-fiction writer? You may already be regularly writing, but aren’t sure about how and where to submit your proposals for paying publication jobs. This PowerPoint presentation is filled with helpful tips sure to fire up your creativity and encourage you to get paid for your work.

GARDENING AND SPIRITUALITY - This lecture with slides explores the interconnection between the garden as a place, and gardening as an act of faith and worship. Religions around the world depict paradise as a garden of various types, and enlightened souls as residents and caretakers of that garden. When we approach our personal gardens, large or small, with delight and expectation, the experience can transform "sweat equity" into "sweet ecstasy" within our own piece of heaven!

GOES WELL WITH HOSTAS - Shade gardening is one of our most challenging landscaping dilemmas. No wonder hardy large-leaved Hostas are the number one perennial for these difficult sites. By designing a dynamic landscape over-flowing with complementing textures and colors, including a myriad of exciting plant combinations to enhance these darkest areas, your shade garden will soon become your favorite. This informative slide lecture will show you how.

LE QUATRRO STAGIONI ... THE FOUR SEASONS - With apologies to both Frankie Valli and Antonio Vivaldi, this lecture isn’t about music, in the traditional sense. It is about creating a harmonious landscape that is beautiful, sustainable, and enjoyable throughout the year. Experience all four seasons in this slide lecture with beautiful imagery and choice plants to tempt you to create your own year-round landscape.

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JAPANESE GARDEN DESIGN – Pam’s own slides illuminate this educational lecture detailing the various nuances of Japanese garden design. With photographs of famous gardens in Japan compared to many American Japanese-style gardens, this talk covers basic landscape principles as well as the historical and spiritual influences that helped create one of the most peaceful and recognizable landscaping styles in the world.
LET’S MIX IT UP - MIXED BORDER DESIGN - A mixed border containing deciduous and evergreen trees, ornamental grass, shrubs, vines, and decorative touches has distinct advantages over a simple herbaceous planting bed. First, you can add year round excitement introducing height, various textures, and colors that carry your garden through the entire four seasons. Second, the woody plants may cut some of the time and labor involved in caring for a perennial bed. This lecture with slides is filled with ideas to embellish your own home landscape's mixed borders.
LOVE PLANTS – Throughout history man has used a surprising number of plants to induce or enhance love. This fun talk with slides looks at the erogenous stimulants and relaxants we call aphrodisiacs, and find that a number of them are still commonly found in our diet today. Chocolate anyone? A great slide lecture for Valentine’s Day events.
MOVING THROUGH THE LANDSCAPE - Movement through and around the landscape is dictated by the paths and passageways, barriers and borders, objects of interest, outstanding specimen plants, water features, etc. that together create unforgettable garden rooms. This slide lecture will show you how to incorporate some of these tricks of landscape design to help your garden flow.

PERSONALITY IN THE GARDEN - Attractive landscaping integrating your home's style into the site with appropriate plantings and colors is a goal for all of us, but often making your mark in the garden means adding those personal touches like sculpture, plaques, unique hardscaping, out buildings, and other flights of fancy. This slide lecture is sure to tickle your funny bone and encourage you to create an out-going garden.

PLANTS OF THE BIBLE - Many of the plants mentioned in the Old and New Testament are surprisingly hardy and suitable to be grown in our public and private Southeastern landscapes. This entertaining inter-denominational slide lecture full of Biblical references, art, history and folklore is frequently requested by both social and religious groups desiring a deeper understanding of the plants of the scriptures, or for planning a Biblical garden of their own.

PLANTS OF THE WINTER HOLIDAYS – Many plants have beautiful legends and lore associating them with the stories of the Advent and other winter holidays. This lecture give a fresh look at the plants we use today, and remember from holidays past, and is great topic for winter time meetings and banquets. Slide or material driven.

PRIVACY BORDER DESIGN – In our ever shrinking landscapes we are faced with the dilemma of screening for privacy. This lecture with slides will show how to edit what should be covered and what could be allowed to remain open to make your landscape a garden oasis. We will take a look at different fences and screening plants as well as focal points to draw the eye.
SMALL SPACES GARDEN DESIGN - So you have a tiny lot to landscape. The first and foremost issue is privacy, and the second is the challenge of effectively designing your small garden to create the illusion of more space. How are you going to accomplish either one? Don't despair. This slide lecture will help you determine how to make the most of your intimate landscape.
WINTER INTEREST IN THE LANDSCAPE - Your garden can delight the senses all winter long with careful planning incorporating evergreen foliage, fragrance, jewel-tone berries, captivating textures, and colorful wintertime flowers. This popular lecture with inspiring slides will illustrate how to enhance your garden's allure throughout the coldest months by exploring various possibilities for extending the excitement in your landscape from the first frosts of fall into late spring.
WINTER INTO SPRING – As the days warm and lengthen during spring, drab winter landscapes give way to the riot of spring bulbs, awakening grassy lawns, beloved small decorative trees, and blooming shrubs. New shades of green, white, purple, pink and gold burst onto the scene in our gardens. This is a time of transition we anxiously anticipate all winter long, especially after attending this slide lecture!
WITCHES AND HERBS – This historical look into the legend and lore of witches and the plants that they were associated with is a fun talk with wickedly entertaining slides. A perfectly bewitching topic for an herb group (or any plant society) to present around Halloween.

Pam Beck on WPTF Radio (680 AM), Raleigh, NC.

WPTF Weekend Gardener Show

To hear Pam Beck from 12/26/09, visit this WPTF Program Podcast.

Current Lecture Schedule

Date
Event/Venue
Thursday, January 14th, 2010 North Carolina Green & Growin' Show, Greensboro, NC,"Oops, They Are Changing How They Garden!"
Saturday, February 13th, 2010 Tryon Palace, New Bern, NC, "Winter Into Spring"
Saturday, February 27th, 2010 Guilford Horticultural Symposium, Greensboro, NC, "Change How You Garden"
Saturday, March 20th, 2010 Salisbury-Rowan Symphony Guild Festival of Spring Symposium, Salisbury, NC, "Change How You Garden"
Thursday, May 6th, 2010 Blount-Bridgers House Symposium, Tarboro, NC, tba
Saturday, May 29th, 2010 Garden Discovery Tours Symposium, Charlottesville, VA, "Le Quattro Stagioni...The Four Seasons"
Thursday, October 21st, 2010 at 10a.m. Gaston County Master Gardeners, Citizens Resource Center, Dallas, NC, 28034, "Plants of the Bible"
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010 at 1 p.m. NCSU/Encore, McKimmon Center, NCSU, Raleigh, NC, "Change How You Garden"
Wednesday, Oct 27th, 2010 at 3:30 p.m. 2010 NC WIC Conference, Hilton North Raleigh Hotel Conference Center, Raleigh, NC, "Growing Your Own Fresh Food In A Limited Space"
Friday, Oct 29th, 2010 at 9 a.m. 2010 NC WIC Conference, Hilton North Raleigh Hotel Conference Center, Raleigh, NC, "Growing Your Own Fresh Food In A Limited Space"
Thursday, January 13th, 2011, Time TBA NCNLA 2011 Green & Grow'n Show, Four Seasons Sheraton Conference Center, Greensboro, NC, "Sell The Dream"
Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 7 p.m. The Arboretum at Johnston Community College, Smithfield, NC, "Change How You Garden"
Saturday, February 12th, 2011, Time TBA Celebrating the Southern Garden: Places that Feed the Soul and Satisfy the Appetite, 2011 Greenville Master Gardener Symposium, Carolina First Center, Greenville, SC, "Places That Feed The Soul"
Saturday, April 16th, 2011, Time TBA Christopher Newport University 15th Annual Garden Symposium, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA, "Change How You Garden"

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Contact Pam Beck

Post Office Box 173, Wake Forest, North Carolina 27588

Head shot courtesy of NewImageStudio.com

© Copyright 2006