Carol Hegel Lang will be the featured speaker for the Dorothy Godtland Lecture Series. Her speech will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Albert Lea Art Center, 226 W. Clark St.

Lang has been gardening since the early 1970s on a 1/3-acre lot. Her gardens are in the cottage style with plants growing randomly everywhere. The gardens were certified by the National Wildlife Federation in 2012 as a backyard wildlife habitat. She takes great pride in welcoming wildlife to the gardens and tries to be a good steward of the land by not using pesticides and limited fertilizers only in containers. She is also a steward to a Little Free Library located within the gardens on her property.

Currently Lang writes a weekly column in three area newspapers, giving advice on gardening and what is happening in her gardens throughout the week. The gardens are spread out over their property and uses lots of containers to add beauty and color when perennials are no longer blooming. Her love of gardening has been handed down by previous generations of women in their family who gardened including her mother.

Lang is not a master gardener and has gained knowledge the hard way, by trial and error throughout the years. Being an avid reader, she pours over every gardening magazine she can get her hands on to learn about all of the newest gardening techniques, problems and pests and the latest plants that are available to us in the midwest. Lang loves to garden and when spring comes she will be outside from dawn to dusk working in the gardens and loves to pass on her knowledge to others. Serendipity Gardens is at 806 Lincoln Ave. and visitors are always welcome.

Lang’s motto is “Come walk with me and you will see a little bit of Heaven made by Thee.”

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Additional information on the Dorothy Godtland Lecture Series and other upcoming events may be found at www.thealbertleaartcenter.org.

The Albert Lea Art Center is at 226 W. Clark St. in Albert Lea. The art center gallery and art shop hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

The Dorothy Godtland Lecture Series is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.