Start Date
08/29/2025
End Date
08/29/2025
Description
This Symposium features timely presentations by national and regional experts who will focus on innovative ways to create low-maintenance, economical and ecologically balanced landscapes using native plants and restoration techniques. The program is geared toward landscape architects, designers and contractors; land planners, managers and developers; horticulture industry professionals, environmental consultants and state/municipal officials.
CEU forms are not handed out until the end of the symposium and only after participants sign an attendance sheet to verify that they attended all 5 hours of the event.
Topics:
Weatherwood Ridge Reserve: Restoring a balanced, multi-layered ecosystem to a degraded landscape, presented by David Hughes, RLA, Weatherwood Design
Consilience – A Multi-disciplinary Approach to Understanding A Proven Method for Holistically Improving Watersheds by Improving Cattle Ranch Performance, presented by Michael McGraw, Senior Wildlife Biologist, Princeton Hydro
Navigating a Sea of Green: Using Historical and Current Conditions Assessments as Compasses to Inform Natural Areas Management, presented by Will Ryan, Ph.D., Director of Horticulture and Land Stewardship, Tyler Arboretum
Naturalistic Placemaking: Inspiration and Works of a Garden Sensualist, presented by Donald Pell, Horticulturist - Garden Designer, Donald Pell Gardens
A World of Discovery: Nurturing Sensory Wildscapes through Creative Land-healing Efforts, presented by Nancy Lawson, Founder, The Humane Gardener
Distance Learning
Yes
Course Equivalency
No
Subjects
Horticulture / Plants
Health, Safety and Welfare
No
Hours
5.0
Learning Outcomes
• Methods of conservation and regeneration of soil
• Rethinking the labor intensive and toxic monoculture lawns and how to
recharge them with life
• Establishing meadows and forest understory to provide food, shelter
and nesting sites for a wide variety of animals and insects
• Methods for creating vernal pools and rain gardens to provide habitat
for aquatic/semi aquatic plants, animals and insects
• Maximizing water infiltration to combat soil erosion and aid in
ecological tolerance during times of drought
• Understanding how working landscapes can contribute to conservation of at-risk species
• Understanding the principles of soil health and how soil condition can impact ecological performance
• Impacts of regenerative practices at scale
• How can these working lands principles translate to/inform natural area landscape design
• Why should Landscape Architects be interested in understanding grassland ecology and the working lands/conservation interface
• Inspiration for naturalistic gardens
• Plant selection for high performance. Are straight species the only option?
• Intermingling or block planting
• Plants selections of equally competitive natures
• Stewarding herbaceous and woody planting
• Learn how common landscaping tools and practices can lead to noise and odor pollution that disrupt animals’ and plants’ ability to communicate.
• Identify maintenance strategies that disrupt the life cycles of native bees, birds and other animals, and learn about alternative practices.
• Understand the influence of common terminology on human relationships to the landscape and explore new and a more expansive vocabulary that better reflects land-healing efforts.
• Learn proven and experimental mitigation and prevention strategies for protecting natural soundscapes, scentscapes and other sensory environments.
• Become familiar with the field of sensory ecology and its application to landscaping.
Instructors
Featured speakers incluce: David Hughes, RLA; Michael McGraw, Senior Wildlife Biologist; Will Ryan, Ph.D., Director of Horticulture and Land Stewardship; Donald Pell, Horticulturist - Garden Designer; Nancy Lawson, Founder, The Humane Gardener
Course Codes
Provider
Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve