Showing posts with label ecological design horticulture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ecological design horticulture. Show all posts

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, January 30, 2012

Review of New York Botanical Garden Premiere Lecture in 12th Annual Winter Lecture Series


Larry Weaner
Breaking the Rules:  Ecological Design for the Real World

New York Botanical Garden (NYBG)
A few years ago, NYBG started a new trend as part of its successful winter lecture series.
To borrow a baseball metaphor, they bring in a switch hitter, prior to the featured speaker.  It’s like the audience warm-up to the main show except when it’s not.
In the beginning, audience members just didn’t like the Garden cutting into their time. After all, these are subscription tickets and people want what they paid for.
The brief intros were more like commercial announcements, as in what’s coming up at the Garden/don’t miss this or that exhibit…
Over time, I think the warm ups have yielded more substance, offering more of a coming attraction kind of lucky-strike extra. 
I’m not saying there aren’t some attendees who still text one another during the preview talk wishing it would end, but I do think the quality of the bonus talk has earned a few stars. 
The Garden should own up to the new format though, as part of its truth in advertising, rather than just popping it in or seeming to “sneak” it in.  Especially if they stand behind the commitment and quality of the talk – after all, the Garden possesses world-class plant experts in many fields who can add to the dialectic between science and environmentalism and sustainability and plant science.

Todd Forrest, vice president of Horticulture, Living Collections, NYBG provided the preview.
Todd is an informed, confident professional, who can also communicate complex earth science paradigms and triage the worlds of horticulture, garden art and botany so that the narrative is compelling and sometimes, downright funny.

Fittingly, Forrest talked about the issues of history, preservation, and sustainability surrounding the Garden’s old growth forest. 
This is a man born to his calling.

He impressed upon the audience how the 50-acre hemlock grove is a “changing forest” rather than a preserved, pristine place that is more of an archived attraction. 
NYBG took possession of the forest in 1895 – in the spirit of the Hudson River school and in the context of expansion and a retort to the city’s rapid industrialization.  
The rest of the Garden was, in fact, built around the forest.  

Forrest used nostalgic images, government surveys from more than a hundred years ago, through to today’s Garden and volunteer staff to demonstrate how the forest has been studied and documented.  The baseline was established by the WPA in the Depression to create a statistical picture of the oak, hemlock and cork trees there; 17% was re-mapped about five years ago.

The Garden tracked the history of the forest’s soil composition, its chestnut blight, theft of the native jack-in-the-pulpits, and the exuberant bird watchers who inadvertently contribute to soil compaction when they go off-trail.  
He pointed out the fact that the squirrel population is now off the charts—used to be 2-7 per hectare. Now it’s 45-51!
Then, there are all the invasive species the Garden has to deal with and manage.  Exotic species alone are up 92% since 1984.

Gardeners are hopeful people though.  And true to form, Forrest outlined solutions that have proven effective in managing the forest, including identifying and removing the invasives: knotweed, ranunculus, Japanese honeysuckle, and cork trees, for example. Beat the squirrels to the hickory and oak nuts, and nurture good herbaceous plants like ferns.  This tedious, dedicated work has yielded results and made a difference, according to Forrest.

Forrest soon introduced Larry Weaner with a funny anecdote, before noting what an innovative landscape designer Larry is -- how blown away he is his by Larry’s sophisticated sense of horticultural style and his respect for the processes. http://www.lweanerdesign.com/

Breaking The Rules – Featured Speaker
Larry thanked Todd for laying the foundation for his own talk about ecological design and succession: both natural and man-made.
Plus Larry noted how much of Todd’s presentation was in fact, a primer for his message. And he was right.

Larry launched his presentation showing the once fashionable “Meadow in a Can” marketing ploy, asking for a show of hands of those who tried this garden slight-of-hand. 
His point was that this attempt took advantage of our collective conceit to make a happy, carefree meadow. 
What were we thinking? 
Well, for starters, we were romantic and loved those billowy blossoms swaying in that random, dreamy dance.  What did we know of habitat?
Like a born-again preacher administering to a receptive, converted flock, Larry seemed to give us group absolution, saying, “It was purely cheap seed.” Adding, “Invariably it was going to fail. There was no connection to the real world.”
And just like that, the dream evaporated. Pouf.
Turns out, producing a meadow is just as intense as a making a successful perennial border. 

But this little cautionary tale established the foundation for Larry’s message and brought us to understand how his ability to break the rules made him a leader of ecological horticulture.
And how we can all follow his example to the promised land of less invasives, less lawn, if we can just think about understanding the ecological processes and habitat.
In the handout, he asks, “Why break the rules?” The answer: Because considering ecological science changes everything.

A key element we learned is that of a competitive environment.  Here the idea is matching habitat to conditions that will sustain the plant species. 

Larry urged us to think about plant communities -- where plants associate with their preferred evolutionary buddies.  Think diversity here.  Monocultures cannot sustain themselves.
Instead, stability is found in companion planting.  
Plus, different plants need different pollinators who recognize their native species.









Disturbance is huge he tells us.  There is disturbance to avoid and disturbance to apply. Who knew?
Disturbance occurs naturally or by man and it highlights the life chapters of a plant.  
For example, if a tree falls in the woods there opens up more light there so that the cardinalis plant, for example, that has been “slumbering” will now germinate and grow where heretofore it had been kept like a Sleeping Beauty, awaiting its prince charming.   
Plants adapt.  
Using a Mike Tyson analogy to describe a fair fight he urged us to prepare for the planting conditions we face.  Gardeners tend to be too hopeful at times…
Within plant communities, change is a desired aesthetic. Work with it. He recommends four plants per square foot will be overgrown except for natives where this metric will inhibit weeds.

Natural succession is management vs. maintenance to allow for change.  We don’t want death. Gardeners are about beauty and life. But Larry reminds us that plants do die.  Plan for it.   
Also plan for plant compositions that change over time such as rudbeckia – or Black-Eyed Susan - that is a bi-annual.  It’s a process of succession of layers and tie in seed mix waiting to unfold. Plants grow at different rates, even in those meadows.  

Traditional Practices might be advantageous.  Choose plants that match plants to habitat and community when designing a garden.  The competitive level is big so be mindful when selecting cultivars.    Larry used a coreopsis as an example.  A recent coreopsis introduction is rosea pink that is not a native species – it’s a wetland plant and would not do well in a traditional dry planting bed we are accustomed to for a coreopsis.  

He also showed examples where no irrigation was needed when the soil Ph is correct; no staking needed for plants that were densely planted or vertically layered.  

Design a garden by editing during the management phase.
When planting think about these priorities:
Soil preparation,
No tilling – avoid disturbing the layers
Imported topsoil vs. native soil
Be mindful of the soil amendments and organic material

Alter planting times.  Allow time between distribution of seed and pollination, waiting for weeds to germinate. During that time, he advises, the plant will have exhausted the weeds.
He also preached the common sense wisdom to select the season best for the plants over the weeds.  This methodology will also decrease watering needs.  Larry used the example of planting Mediterranean plants that require little water that were planted in late June/July thereby recreating or mimicking their native habitat and better insuring a healthy start.  This is in contrast to conventional wisdom, which is to plant in the spring – or autumn – and give the plants lots of water.  Something to think about…  

Research your regional Ecotypes and plan accordingly.






And look to what he terms Restoration Nurseries.  Most every other type of nursery has a single goal:  get the plant material out the door. Too often the plants don’t have a strong root system.  They promote leaves at the top of the plant.  But those scrawny, spindly plants are in fact, destined to be healthier in the long run, he told us.

Larry employs a curious way to tamp out weeds:  Timed mowing.  
Mowing seasonally cuts off invasives, forms dense cover and weeds fade out, Larry says.  It takes about five years to see results for this more human landscape.  “It’s sophisticated but not difficult to do,” he adds.  He showed how he did this with his own birch line with native spirea manipulating the tree-shrub composition and Migrating the Mow Line so that he can modify the sinewy path out to where he would prefer it – closer to a meadow.


He recommends cutting perennials in the spring not the fall.
Don’t use raw wood chips because they will alter late stage succession plants.  Pea gravel often allows birdseed “deposits.”  Instead, replace traditional mulches with highly competitive ground layer vegetation.   

It was a lot of information – all terrific and in many ways it was learning to break some long held rules or assumptions.  Larry Weaner needs to produce a book about his out of the garden bed theories and evolved landscape design practices.  He says his goal is native plant dominance in the seed bank. 
Hip, hip, hooray!  I, for one, plan to be a loyal follower and card-carrying member of the Larry Weaner Ecological Design fan club.  





Larry concluded his talk with a beautiful piece of music that he said inspired him and that he hoped would help convey the experience of being in the landscapes.   
It was a “Partnership of Nature.”  As a Hayden string quartet played, and breathtaking images lit up the screen, it was a few moments that underscored his sense of awe with nature. I cried…




Next up is Doug Tallamy, Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 10:00 am to discuss the use of native plants and the importance of insects in the garden, local food web and ecosystems. For more information and to register: