This program is now sold out.

8:15 am-8:45 am Registration

8:45 am-12:45 pm Program

12:45 pm-1:15 pm Plant pickup

Heritage Museums & Gardens and the Cape Cod Hydrangea Society are pleased to continue our partnership to present the tenth annual Hydrangea University at Heritage. This symposium-style program is the premier event of the annual Cape Cod Hydrangea Festival, featuring expert guest speakers who will inspire and entertain while increasing participants’ knowledge of hydrangeas. This year’s speakers include:

• Jack Aldridge of the Royal Horticultural Society Garden Wisley, Surrey, United Kingdom
• Murray Buckner of Full Moon Blooms, Palmyra, Virginia
• C.L. Fornari, author, garden communicator, and design consultant, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

Following the program, participants will have the opportunity to tour the Cape Cod Hydrangea Society Display Garden and the North American Hydrangea Test Garden.

Included with registration:

• Presentations by three expert speakers
• Admission to all of Heritage Museums & Gardens for the entire day, until closing at 5 pm
• Morning refreshments (coffee, tea, pastry)
• Take-home materials
• A hydrangea plant to take home

Advance registration is required, and we expect this popular program to sell out quickly.

Program fees fund both Heritage’s mission to inspire people of all ages to explore, discover, and learn together, and the Cape Cod Hydrangea Society’s mission to share knowledge and enjoyment of hydrangeas with the broader community. Thank you for your support.

Session Descriptions

Jack Aldridge, Royal Horticultural Society horticulturalist

Hydrangeas in the U.K.

At Hydrangea University Jack will present a current analysis of the genus hydrangea species in the United Kingdom.

Murray Buckner, Hydrangea grower and hybridizer

Full Moon Blooms 

Murray will share details about his hybridizing strategies and provide insight about the process - crossing unique selections to obtain new and superior characteristics, growing and evaluating thousands of plant seedlings, and finally selecting the best of the lot. His amazing new H. paniculata hybrids may well change the hydrangea world. Many of these new hybrids will be shown in his presentation, and a couple of special live plants will be on display. 

C.L Fornari, Author, garden communicator, and design consultant

Swipe Right on Hydrangeas: New Ways to Think, Talk, and Rave About the Plants We Love

Forget everything you thought a hydrangea talk would be. This one has a matchmaking app, high school archetypes, and a laugh-out-loud look at the same three questions that have been asked a thousand times. We're diving into the full, fabulous range of this genus and figuring out how to spread information and our enthusiasm far and wide. Whether you're a lifelong hydrangea devotee or just starting your obsession, this talk will change how you think about and share the plants you grow. Because if you love hydrangeas this much, the world deserves to know about it.

Program Presenters

Jack Aldridge, Royal Horticultural Society horticulturalist

Jack is responsible for Oakwood at the Royal Horticultural Society Garden at Wisley, England, a 4.5-acre woodland garden, home to an exciting collection of trees and shrubs and their understudy of perennials and bulbs. He has been at Wisley as a horticulturist since immediately after graduating from the prestigious two-year Wisley Diploma in 2022. He is active internationally with the Dendrology Society and currently an author for their Trees and Shrubs online. Jack is a trustee at the significant White House Farm (WHF) Garden and Arboretum where he is currently guiding the updating, logging, and labelling of the WHF collections.

Murray Buckner, Hydrangea grower and hybridizer

Murray Buckner attended the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, and he remained in the Charlottesville, Virginia area working for landscape design firms. A devoted plantsman, he also dabbled in other plant-related endeavors simultaneously along the way, especially plant hybridizing. 

His company – Full Moon Blooms – is a specialized operation devoted to the Hydrangea paniculata species. Now more than 15 years in the making, Murray’s total site includes substantial propagation, cut flower production, landscape shrub production, in-ground growing areas, and his significant hybridizing operation.

C.L Fornari, Author, garden communicator, and design consultant

Known as The Garden Lady, C.L. Fornari is a speaker, writer, and radio host on WCAI and WGBH Boston. She’s the author of nine books about gardening, including her latest book, Hydrangea Happiness. C.L. often suspects that all of these garden communications merely serve to put a somewhat legitimate frame around a serious case of plant lust. She grows annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees at Poison Ivy Acres on Cape Cod and her favorite time of year is when she can go into the vegetable garden at 5 pm and ask, “What’s for dinner?”