2026 Lecture Series registration is now open! Past lectures listed towards the bottom.
Thursday, November 19, 2026
Nick Esthus, Garden Grounds & Facilities Manager
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
A Year in Review
Join Nick Esthus as he discusses the “insider’s view” of Anderson Japanese Gardens. Nick will look back at the many factors that influenced the Garden over the last twelve months. He will share the routine and not-so-routine, from winter to fall, weather patterns, and special projects – they all have an impact on the Garden.
Nick Esthus is the Garden Grounds and Facilities Manager at Anderson Japanese Gardens. Nick first started working in Japanese gardens in 2011 when he took over head Japanese Garden duties at the Memphis Botanic Garden’s Seijaku-en. In 2016, he moved to Texas to further his career at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden’s Japanese garden where he worked closely with John Powell, a prominent Japanese garden expert, to develop maintenance schedules, new garden features and to create a plan for future tree planting and garden projects. In the summer of 2023, Nick joined Anderson Japanese Gardens to replace longtime garden curator Tim Gruner, and to lead the garden crew through creative collaboration and a strong sense of teamwork. Mr. Esthus attended the 2013 Japanese Garden Intensive Seminar in Kyoto Japan where he visited and studied many gardens under top garden professionals and academics. A native of central Ohio and a proud Buckeyes fan, Nick attended The Ohio State University and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Landscape Horticulture.
Previous 2026 Lectures Listed Below
Thursday, April 16, 2026
Roy Diblick, Perennial Garden Designer and Author of The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
Understanding and Planting Pollinator Gardens
This lecture offers and overview of pollinator gardens, focusing on plants that support pollinators, basic garden design principles, planting methods, and ongoing stewardship. The presentation will also introduce common pollinators and discuss their role in healthy ecosystems. Information about a hands-on pollinator garden workshop later this spring will be provided.
Thursday, May 21, 2026
Janie Grillo, Nature/Forest Therapy Guide
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
Invite and Support Butterflies in your Landscape
Whether you offer a planter or a whole prairie, you can easily attract these beautiful creatures to your landscape. Learn about the lifecycle of butterflies, how to garden for each stage of their life and how to create a habitat for them in turn, other pollinators. Take home information about nectar and host plants that or most common butterflies enjoy.
Janie Grillo has a BS in biology from SUNY at Fredonia (1975) and is certified by the association of Nature and Forest Therapy Guides. She has worked for two ornamental and native plant nurseries cumulatively for 23 years and has studied, observed and raised butterflies for 25 years. A year after adding her own butterfly garden at home, Janie designed and coordinated a handicap-accessible sensory, butterfly garden at an equine-assisted therapy facility. She has tagged monarch butterflies for Monarch Watch since 2002 and visited the monarch sanctuaries in Mexico in 2012. Janie has had the pleasure to speak at a wide range of venues. She enjoys meeting people and hopes to stir interest in plants and pollinators.
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Sadafumi Uchiyama, Curator Emeritus of Portland Japanese Garden
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
He is a registered landscape architect in Oregon with a BLA and MLA from the University of Illinois. His representative projects include Osaka Garden, the site of the 1893 Great Columbian Exposition at Jackson Park in Chicago, the Shofu-en of the Denver Botanic Gardens and a Japanese garden at Duke University in NC. Sada is currently a design consultant for Anderson Japanese Gardens.
Thursday, July 16, 2026
Hekiun Oda
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
Hekiun Oda Sensei was born and raised in Kobe, Japan – a region long renowned for producing many distinguished calligraphers. At the age of five, he began his formal training under the tutelage of the celebrated calligrapher Keigo-un; since then, he has dedicated his entire life to the path of calligraphy.
After relocating his base of operations to Chicago in 1990, he expanded his artistic activities across a diverse range of venues, including UNIQLO, the Japan Information Center (JIC) in Chicago, and the Japan Culture Center – where we are gathered today. In addition to hosting live calligraphy performances and solo exhibitions – widely regarded as the most prestigious open-submission exhibitions in the Japanese calligraphy world-and has consistently been selected as an exhibitor, particularly in the Yomiuri Calligraphy Exhibition.
In 2026, he moved his primary base of operations to New York, where he continues to work as a visual artist, broadly disseminating the beauty of Japanese calligraphy art. In 2009, he established the “Oda Japanese Calligraphy School”, through which he has instructed over 100 students to date. Moreover, in November 2011, he was awarded the title of *Shihan* (Master Instructor)-the highest rank attainable for a calligraphy teacher-by the Genshinkai, one of the most authoritative organizations within the calligraphy community in Japan.
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Mami Takahashi
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
Traces of Repair: Kintsugi, Memory, and Material
This lecture explores Kintsugi not only as a traditional Japanese repair technique, but as a way of understanding how objects change over time and carry traces of their history. Contemporary artist Mami Takahashi shares how her work engages Kintsugi alongside performance, sound, and installation to reflect on memory, transformation, and the quiet presence of materials. Rather than restoring and object to its original state, Kintsugi highlights breakage, allowing damage to remain visible as part of the object’s ongoing life.
In the context of the Japanese garden – where attention to seasonality, change ,and subtle transformation is central- this talk invites audiences to consider repair as a form of care, continuity, and awareness.
Mami Takahashi is a contemporary artist from Tokyo, based in Chicago. Working across material-based practices, including Kintsugi, as well as performance, sound, and installation, her work explores memory, language, and cultural continuity.
Her practice considers how materials and bodies carry traces of experience over time, often through processes of repetition, layering, and repair. Rather than concealing damage, her work highlights transformation-allowing fragments, voices, and materials to remain visible as part of an ongoing presence.
Takahashi has presented her work at institutions including the International Museum of Surgical Science (Chicago), Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco Art Institute, and Southern Alberta Art Gallery. She is currently serving as Artistic Director at the Japanese Culture Center and will serve as Artistic & Curatorial Advisor of Japanese Art at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art (Chicago) beginning in 2026.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Margot Wang, President of Ohara School Chicago Chapter
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
Landscape in Ikebana
Ikebana goes beyond flowers and plants. Space is also a great factor to be included in Ikebana. Landscapes is the signature style of Ohara School of Ikebana. In addition to the power point lecture of how the landscape evolves in Ikebana history, several related Ikebana styles will be demonstrated.
Margot Wang is a distinguished Ikebana Master and a prominent leader in Chicago’s Japanese floral arts community. She currently serves as the President of the Ohara School Chicago Chapter, following a four-year tenure as President of Ikebana International Chicago Chapter (2020-2024)
As a Master Sensei at Ikebana on Halsted, Margot is a dedicated educator and an active member of the North American Ohara Teachers Association. Her expertise is frequently sought after by the Chicago Public Library, the Chicago Park District, various universities, and private organizations, where she conducts demonstrations and workshops to spread the art of Ikebana.
Her acclaimed arrangements have been showcased at prestigious venues and events, including: The Chicago Botanic Garden and Morton Arboretum, The Arts Club of Chicago, The Ginza and Japan Festivals, and the 2025 Ikebana International World Convention. Beyond her floral mastery, Margot shares her passion for horticulture as a docent for the Lincoln Park Conservancy.
Thursday, October 15, 2026
Ayako Yoshimura, Ph.D.
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available
The “Kimono Way” of Appreciating Nature
The kimono has long been a prominent symbol of Japanese culture. At times representative of the Orient to the West, this traditional garment has borne its high artistic value and cultural significance both inside and outside of Japan. One culturally important quality of the kimono is its embodiment of the beauty of nature found in landscapes, flowers, and plants. This talk with cover the history of the kimono, the correlation between kimono patterns and the nature themes found in classical Japanese literature and the ways in which the four seasons have been appreciated by kimono wearers over the centuries.
Ayako Yoshimura, Ph. D is a folklorist and material-culture researcher whose expertise includes the history of kimono fashion. She has provided public talks on kimono-wearing and kimono patterns and symbolism in the Chicago area. Her public outreach work includes the article “A Glimpse of Meiji Kimono Fashion” in Digital Meijis: Revisualizing Modern Japanese History at 150 (University of British Columbia, 2018) and the online talk “Folklore of Kimono-Imaginary Flowers” (with artist Mayumi Lake, Hyde Park Art Center, 2022).
2025 Lecture Series – View on Youtube
Thursday, July 18, 2024
Charo D’Etcheverry, Professor of Classical Japanese Literature. Chair, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. Director, International Learning Community.
7:00 PM Lecture | Members – Free | Non-Members $5 | Pre-Registration Required | Limited Spaces Available