Verso University: Create Your Own Garden Paradise!

Course Details

Monday, May 11, 6:30-8 pm (Brooks Place)

Registration Fee: $5

Life is more enjoyable when our homes and gardens become personal sanctuaries for relaxation, family fun, and entertainment. Learn how Emily Kelting, owner of GreatScapes, a local landscaping company in business for 23 years, has transformed her own gardens and those of her clients into personal retreats and refuges from daily life. Discover important factors that landscape designers consider when designing a property that are important considerations for DIY’ers too! Emily will provide helpful resources you can use in the planning and installation of landscape and hardscape (i.e. everything that isn’t green!) at your house.

Some of the informational categories that will be covered include:

• The Approach and Arrival at Your Home
• Foundation Plantings Around the House
• Garden Rooms and Paths for Circulation
• Patios and Decks, Garden Studios, Greenhouses, Sheds and Pool Houses
• The Perimeter

About the Presenter

Emily Kelting has lived many lives and had many careers — nine in fact! She’s a graduate of Vassar College and earned her certificate in Landscape design in 2007 from the New York Botanical Garden, where she has since taught Landscape Design and Photography.

The owner of GreatScapes, based in New Canaan, she has worked for 23 years for discerning clients on properties that range from condominium terraces to 7.5 acre estates.  Emily is also a long-time member of the New Canaan Garden Club, a Speaker for the Garden Club of America, and a popular presenter at garden club, libraries, community centers and historical societies.

In her past life, she was a professional figure skater with the International Holiday on Ice, and a proud member of The New Canaan Mother Puckers, a women’s ice hockey team.  She also founded Ice Skating for Everyone, a non-profit that teaches ice skating to under-served children in Fairfield County.

As a writer, she was on staff at New York and Self Magazines and wrote a book, Little Winners: Inside the World of the Child Sports Star, about child athletes.  She is currently a writer for Horticulture Magazine.

An award-winning photographer, Emily has traveled to  Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South and Latin America to capture the  spirit of the people and places she visits. She’s an award-winning photographer, and exhibiting member of the Rowayton Arts Center and the New Canaan Carriage Barn Arts Center.

Important Information About Verso University Classes

• Classes are usually structured as a consecutive series.
• Class size is often limited.
• Each series has a one-time fee registration fee covering all classes in the series.
• Registration is mandatory.
• The Westport Library wants to ensure that all interested students are able to participate in Verso University courses. If the registration fee is a barrier to entry for you, please contact [email protected].

Verso University is the Library’s lifelong learning and education initiative, serving up year-round offerings of classes, workshops, and lectures designed to further education and learning. Offerings run the gamut of educational opportunities, ranging from one-time lectures to ongoing courses to classes that meet weekly or perhaps monthly.

Verso University programs are made possible by the generous support of the Nancy J. Beard Lifelong Learning and Education Fund.