Showing posts with label ecology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ecology. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Register for NYBG Second Annual Hortie Hoopla


NYBG's Fran Coelho, explains Plant ID to 2013 "Horties"
 
Last year The New York Botanical Garden and the School of Professional Horticulture hosted the first-ever, NYC-area, Green Industry Intern Field Day, "Hortie Hoopla," to increase awareness and inform young people interested in a career in horticulture, ecology, landscape design, and ecological restoration.
Geared toward people who want to improve our environment and the world by working with plants, the event gathered more than 80 attendees from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and even North Carolina, proving that horticulture is alive and thriving.
NYBG and the School of Professional Horticulture invite you once again to join us on Wednesday, July 23, at 10 a.m. for Hortie Hoopla II.
This free event is more than just fun and games. 
It includes informative and inspiring sessions throughout the day,
Director of SOPH, NYBG, Charles Yurgalevitch welcomes Horties to 1st Hortie Hoopla
including remarks from top horticulturists and garden designers, a career info session, a plant ID contest, and numerous tours, plus time to network and create contacts in the industry.  

This free event is for horticultural interns (18 and older), accompanied by no more than two staff members from your organization.
Registration is required. Please R.S.V.P. with the names and e-mail addresses of each person attending to Eric Lieberman, elieberman@nybg.org or 718.817.8580.
Space is limited, so register early. If you registered by June 30, your name was  automatically entered into a drawing for a $50 gift certificate.  I learned from NYBG’s Charles M. Yurgalevitch, Ph.D., 
Director, School of Professional Horticulture, there are just about 100 "Horties" already registered and the event will be capped at 125 – so don’t delay. Register now.
Just look at the extraordinary line up of talks and garden tours. And Hort “stars” including my garden idol, Lynden Miller, and Ken Druse - a true Hort treasure (I am a card-carrying member of the Ken Druse fan club!), along with Hort "Rock Stars" Uli Lorimer, BBG (we’ve had some grand times on the Martha Stewart Show- showcasing Uli’s plant knowledge for the domestic diva); and Nick Storrs – a smart, eloquent speaker and farmer who I’ve had the great pleasure of enjoying his talks at The Hort, this year’s Food Tech Conference and a tour of the Randall’s Island farm and rice paddy!
HORTIE HOOPLA II SCHEDULE
10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Welcome – Charles M. Yurgalevitch, Ph.D., Director of the School of Professional Horticulture
My Stories – Four inspiring bios by successful horticulturists who started as interns:
Uli Lorimer, former intern and gardener at Wave Hill, now Curator of the Native Flora Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 

Lynden B. Miller, public garden designer in New York City and director of The Conservatory Garden in Central Park. 

Annie Novak, co-founder of Eagle Street Rooftop Farm and Manager of NYBG's Edible Academy. 

Nick Storrs, former intern at the Last Resort Farm, now the Urban Farm Manager at Randall's Island Park Alliance.
The State of Horticulture in 2014 - Ken Druse, award-winning garden writer, photographer, author of 20 books, and host of the weekly radio program "Real Dirt."  
Ken Druse, 2013 Keynoter, Hortie Hoopla
















Keynote Speaker - Joseph Tychonievich, freelance garden writer/speaker, plant breeder, and author of Plant Breeding for the Home Gardener.
12–1 p.m. – Career Information Session and Lunch
1–4 p.m. – Tours
Native Plant Garden, Azalea Garden, and Thain Family Forest
Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, Home Gardening Center, Perennial Garden, and Ladies' Border
LuEsther T. Mertz Library, William and Lynda Steere Herbarium, and Pfizer Plant Research Laboratory

Plant ID Contest throughout the afternoon
5:30 p.m. to dusk – BBQ, fun and games in the Ruth Rea Howell Family Garden  


Early Registration for this year’s Green Industry Intern Field Day ends today.
By registering early, your name and the names of your interns will automatically entered in a raffle to win a $50 gift certificate! 





It will still be possible to register for this exciting event after today. 


If you know of other organizations with interns, please forward this to them.




I wrote about the successful Hortie Hoopla premiere last year – see the Garden Glamour post here: goo.gl/IP57nB


Sponsors of this year's Hortie Hoopla include Rodale Press and Town And Gardens.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Metro Hort Lecture Shines a Light on Emerging Ecological Design


Billed as a talk about “Relationships of Ecological Design with Landscape Architecture” and featuring the landscape architect and urban ecologist Alexander Felson, the talk was full of anticipation on the subject of the love child of science and design that needs exploration and discussion.
Its moment had arrived.
Unfortunately, the compelling topic’s prime time in the spotlight fell short of expectations.
I can’t quit put my finger on it but as I looked around the PowerPoint-lit room in the Central Park (NYC) Amory where all the Metro Hort lectures are held, there seemed a discernible – and in some cases, audible – tsking or whispers of “where’s the plants?”
You see, horticulture fans want to see pictures of plants, wildlife. “Before” and “After” images are especially well received.

And Alex – while undeniably knowledgeable and informed – he used no notes and was animated in his delivery, conveying his downright passionate about the topic and the issues – couldn’t seem to connect with the attending audience. 
People started to leave at the appointed conclusion time, despite Alex’s getting the OK to continue for another half hour. 
I thought maybe it was me.  I want to be sophisticated about this most important subject and burgeoning field.  But no, the stony silence screamed, “This is not grabbing me. It’s kinda' boring…”

Further, the morning after was a New York Botanical Garden lecture and attendees there were making “Icky” faces when asked about the Metro Hort lecture.  The reviews were in.  It is undoubtedly a compelling, fascinating topic. But the lecture wasn’t interesting, sad to report.
Perhaps if it was more focused…
Or used more vivid images of plants rather than almost exclusively the flat, one-dimensional charts, diagrams, and graphs that were on the screen. (I only shot plant pictures for this news post.)

I’m sure there is a thespian or performer who was quoted as saying, “Know thy audience.”

In all fairness, there were those who said despite the academia-style presentation, we do all need to learn about the reconstructing landscapes and ecosystems using applied ecology.  There needs to be a proactive approach to embedding science into the system of landscape design.  Research needs to be included as part of the design process too. 
There was no argument from any quarter about that. It was just how it was delivered.

Nevertheless, the points are worth repeating here.
The opportunities for restoration and applied ecology will only increase. 
Alex showed more than a few examples of innovative restoration projects including the Presidio Trust in San Francisco, NY’s East River waterfront, the World’s Fair grounds in Queens, NY, and the 200 acres in Queens he’s working on as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s Million Trees Program.
And a cutie pie one using the life cycle of oysters.

The Presidio project brought together a team of landscape architects and designers and ecologists to talk about their broken communications and to determine how to reach consensus. 
This part of the process in creating adaptable landscapes, while a key dynamic, doesn’t make for lecture fodder… Isn’t it true in any business or working dynamic that it’s hard to get things done but discussion and goal setting and compromise work get to the desired outcome? The answer is yes.

So to me, not a huge surprise that one part of the Presidio’s concessions was a winning result.
No one could take issue with how those traditionalist who clung to keeping things the way they were - however ill-informed those decisions may have been - came round to making some changes so that they could replace 40 trees with local genotypes at Inspiration Point, thus insuring a great view.



Alex advised that in these situations no one can have its cake and eat it too.
Compromise is the only solution. 






The Adaptive Management Approach incorporates a few key elements he says will prove valuable in getting to those solutions. They are:

·      What is the value of species richness?
·      What is the value of soil amendments as they will also promote invasives?
·      Determine whether to remove or leave invasive species?

The Cost & Benefits part of the add-on lecture was kind of a non-starter -- a bridge to nowhere… 
In terms of management, costs must be managed. Again, that’s true for any work discipline.
And it’s important, of course, to measure things like the biomass and carbon sequestering.  
He cited the development of the system to measure that an urban tree will take anywhere from 11 to 41 years to pay back its carbon survival.
And yet, he noted there are yet no ways to measure the human cost of interaction. Why not?  How can we overlook this most important element of watching children in nature, developing a relationship with nature?

However, Alex is working very hard to “build a bridge”  – to become part of the landscape architect frontiers of ecology.

One goal he’s got his eyes set on is Parking Lots – those blights on the suburban landscape where once there was probably a farm or meadow, and are now locked into unsustainable asphalt…
He cited the overabundance of “human modification of land that influences the aesthetic.  We need to create water absorption, nearby wetlands, perhaps recirculating water and increase permeable surfaces in the parking lots – and in urban environments in general.

Another very important project is one he’s working on in Bridgeport and Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  Working with the Nature Conservancy they’ve created mapping that surveys the area that that will indicate which neighborhoods and homes will be under water given the expected storm surges as a result of climate change. 
There was already a lot of damage after the summer’s hurricane that left more than $300,000 worth of damage behind and more than a few townspeople feeling like those living on the coast are a tax burden for the rest of the citizens.
It’s so difficult to tell a third generation family there that their home will be under water or that they have to leave and move away, Alex commented.
Alex pointed out how work is being done to use Amtrak train tracks and from there through to the tide gates.
They tried to get the town to raise the utilities from the basement but that suggestion went nowhere.
He proposed they not think of their neighbor as random but rather as a sub basin watershed
And so it goes…

“Restoration ecologists work with designer and other practioners in the development of resilient and adapted landscapes. Traditionally focused on reconstructing ecosystems of historically documented landscapes, this approach is being reassessed in light of changes in site conditions and pressures on ecosystems from global environmental changes

Alex discussed his involvement and work in projects where novel ecosystems that use historical knowledge of restoration and recognize the value of creative environmentally sensitive solutions that are functional and aesthetic.”


Alexander Felson is a landscape architect and urban ecologist, is on the faculty of both the School of Architecture and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University.  His projects include a Harlem community garden, The East River Salt Marsh project with Ken Smith, and a real estate development in the Tuxedo Reserve where he brought a together a multidisciplinary team of academics and practioners to work the developer community planning boards, and regulators to define and encourage responsible management of urban eco

Monday, November 1, 2010

Landscape Design Portfolio Lecture featuring Carol Franklin


High Performance Landscapes: The Work of Andropogon

Speaker Carol Franklin is a founding principal of Andropogon Associates landscape architectural services, based in Philadelphia. http://andropogon.com/   High Performance Landscapes is a perfect way to characterize their full-impact, revolutionary, astonishing work.

She and her company have been leaders in greenscaping, ecological historical preservation and sustainable landscape design from the time when she says they were laughed at for their ecological designs.  She remembers being hissed off the stage at an ASLA meeting for suggesting they would take children out to the fields out to the fields and pretend we are gardeners.  To design with nature represented a new generation. 
She finds it refreshing to be considered “fashionable” today.   

Discovering and working from a philosophy of the genius loci – or the spirit of place -- is one of the firm’s signature design platforms.  They also boast a portfolio of complex ecological engineering as well as design, utilizing natural elements of water, plant material and stone.  The result is to interface with the area – even if it’s urban.  Or especially if it’s urban. 

Franklin showed the work they did for Center City’s Rittenhouse Square are for the University of Pennsylvania. This is a wonderful example of utilizing rainwater runoff, incorporating water treatment within the design and producing a green space for the students and citizen to enjoy on this almost 2 acres of city life.   Their design changed the landscape to produce an area that had previously been 93% impervious. Now the high performance water treatment cisterns store 20,000 gallons of runoff and AC runoff – within the parking garage.  The soil also stores water. 

To rediscover places, the firm takes makes a habitat work by using breaking attitudes, working with nature’s concepts: composting, cleaning polluted areas, recirculating water and finding those nooks and crannies – even in buildings – that can tell the story of that landscape’s unique place.

Franklin also demonstrated some comic genius!  Her wickedly witty remarks and behind the scenes commentary made me think she must be a sophisticated, fun pro to work with.
Franklin was also refreshing by not only showing Andropogon completed and proposed projects but competing firms’ too. 
My associates in attendance agreed afterwards this was a welcome approach to presenting case studies.  After all just because politics or budgets precluded design selection or job completion, we still have a lot to learn from the landscape architects’ research and design. 

Andropogon’s work on the Sidwell Friends School courtyard in Washington DC is the scout badge for earned honor in my book. Why?  Because the design is comprised of natural, local materials so much that one would swear the campus building were built around the natural look of the grounds.
The courtyard is a working science project the students used for study, such as water sciences, as well as for socializing.  There’s lots of walking around the garden areas. Today, the rain garden and wetland area is the “heart of the school” according to Franklin.
“Complete Streets” is a design concept Franklin espoused that delighted the audience. Here urbanites can “seize the worst parts of their city and find underused or single-purpose use areas for multiple uses.”  She was quite adamant though about making the areas unique and beautiful and not just copying the highly successful Complete Streets of Portland with their Greek keystone-design shapes

Andropogon collaborated on the dynamic holistic work at the Nikko Kirifuri hotel and spa resort hotel in the forest of Japan is magical.  They worked to restore the surrounding woods, produced a waterfall that serves a water treatment function but you would swear is the handiwork of Mother Nature.  In a way, it is.

The works Franklin presented and their attention to sustainable design must surely be the future of landscape design. We can learn much from the holistic, sustainable work that looks to reuse, repurpose and work with natural, elements.