Allen Hirsh
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Overview
8909 Ellsworth Ct. Silver Spring, Maryland 20910Allen Hirsh is a plant cold hardiness scientist, ex-nurseryman and exotic gardener in Silver Spring, MD. His unusual background enables him to lecture in depth on both interesting plants and winter challenges in the garden.
e: view email allenhir@earthlink.net
Description
He was raised in a large, fancy nursery in Toms River, NJ, and his parents allowed him to experiment with exotic plants from 6th grade on. He did undergraduate work in molecular biology at Caltech in southern California in the 60’s and an initial stint as a graduate student in neurophysiology at Columbia University in NY in the early 70’s, but left without completing his PhD, returning to the family nursery for several years. Later he worked his way through a second grad school, The University of Maryland College Park, as a local nurseryman in the late 70's. Eventually he took a job in the Cryobiology Laboratory of The American Red Cross and did his PhD on the biophysics of deep freezing resistance in Populus (balsam poplars), discovering cellular glassification as a newly recognized component of cold hardiness in the process. As a result of signals he detected in the deeply frozen poplar wood, about 20 years ago he began basic biophysical work on the forces destabilizing proteins, especially at low temperatures. Presently he is working to successfully introduce a new technology for separating proteins he co-invented with his colleague, Dr. Latchezar Tsonev, and pondering how to use the insight that has brought to think anew about the molecular causes of freezing injury in plants.
In the late 80’s, while working on plant cold hardiness in the lab, he started a small weekend fancy landscaping business making very large gardens for wealthy lawyers and doctors in the trendiest suburbs of the Imperial Capital. His crew was mostly his fellow scientists and they used to joke that they should submit themselves to the Guinness Book of World Records as the most educated landscape crew on earth. That business was closed with the birth of his first child, but the extra money it made allowed his family to purchase their first home.
His present garden is at the house they purchased in Jan. 2001. Its initial emphasis was winter hardy xerophytic subtropicals. Large rockeries were constructed across the south side of the house holding many species of cacti, agaves, South African mesembs, tree yucca, some palms, and many rock garden plants mixed together with more traditional plants like dwarf conifers and creeping phlox in sharply south facing intensely sunny elevated beds. The more xerophytic plants were planted in large pockets of a mixture of coarse sand, pea gravel and ground pumice. In subsequent years he has branched out extensively, experimenting with southern hemisphere plants and many woody plants not usually found in gardens in the Middle Atlantic states to fill beds on the east west and north sides of the property. Camellias, Gardenias, evergreen Asian Magnolias, unusual Mahonias, etc. have made for a rich testing ground for extending the bounds of exotic horticulture in the coastal northeast. With the additional resources of a local cadre of superb like minded gardeners, the National Arboretum, The US Botanic Garden and Brookside Botanic Gardens he can lecture about a broad range of wonderful plants too little known as well as make the complexities of plant cold hardiness much easier to grasp.
Topics
Overlooked Ornamental Gems for The Upper South and Northeast-This is at least four full lectures. Mainly woody plants of solid ornamental value and relatively easy to grow, but used infrequently or not at all.
Understanding Plant Cold Hardiness-A wide ranging talk about the various stresses plants face from freezing and how they handle those stresses.
Hardy Cactus and Succulents in the Northeast-From my 23 years of serious efforts in this direction plus knowledge gleaned from experts here and abroad: how to successfully introduce cacti and succulents into our gardens.
Locations
Silver Spring, MD zone 7a
Photo Gallery
Audience Reviews
Raves for Al Hirsh
James L. Dronenburg from Knoxville, MD - 10/02/2011 08:44:00
Al Hirsh spoke to the Four Seasons garden club ( a large DC Metro Area collection of plant nuts) on September 21, 2011. The talk was 'overlooked gem' plants. We loved it. He's a good speaker, kept us spellbound and gave us a LOT of information. Al is, of course, well known among plant fanatics as a zonebuster, and we have had him speak to the Four Seasons before. We have already committed to book him again.
