Calling all those interested in learning about and sharing your knowledge about landscaping in sustainable ways. This workshop is for you.
As student and horticulturist Lindsay Davidson wrote on her Sustainable Landscape Maintenance exam years ago: Ken Cochran said in his lecture, ‘You must learn to be a practicing ecologist.’ That statement hit home. To landscape sustainably, we must look at the built/constructed landscape as an ecologist would look at a prairie or old growth forest, or wetland.
Recognizing that there are hundreds or thousands of pieces that fit together to create a complete puzzle of an ecosystem is the first integral step in sustainable landscape design. Removing or changing of any individual piece alters the puzzle in some way.
Well done, Lindsay. Now for the details of our September 3 workshop:
WHO: For all those who install, maintain, want to plant, tinker with, and/or spend time enjoying (and less time maintaining) landscapes.
WHAT: Sustainable Landscaping for Ohio
Defining Sustainability, The Season of 2019, intro to the “Tree Book” – Ann Chanon and Jim Chatfield
Xeriscaping: The Art and Science of Matching Plants to Their Environments – Ann Chanon
Plant Selections for Disease and Insect Resistance – Jim Chatfield
Lunch and Refreshments and Plant Giveaways- All
Fun Plant Quizzes - All
Secrest Arbortum Walk – Secrest Arboretumites and All
WHEN: Tuesday, September 3, 10:00am – 3:30pm
WHERE: The Miller Pavilion and the Arboretum grounds of Ohio State University’s Secrest Arboretum on the OSU-Wooster Campus.
WHY: The Joy of Landscaping
HOW: Register by going to go.osu.edu/chatfield (must be lower case “c”). Or you can contact Sarah Mays of OSU Extension at mays.201@osu.edu or 330-263-3831, fax: 330-263-3667. Registration is $40 and lunch and refreshments are included. Bring your walking shoes for the Arboretum walk. Lunch and refreshments included. Plant prizes shall be available for good questions, answers, and creative corrections and insults.
Also: Check out the site for the Ohio Plant Diagnostic program at Secrest on September 6 and the Alexander von Humboldt Sestercentennial on September 13-14. Coming soon is the information for the Plant Families III program on September 18.
Finally, let’s listen to Lindsay again, from that 2010 exam, discussing how she would develop a sustainable landscape business:
“Balance would be the key pillar of my landscape business. The ultimate goal would be to create landscapes that are cost efficient, have minimal or positive effect environmentally, have purpose being both functional and aesthetically pleasing, and finally serve as a positive example and educational tool for others.
I want my business to not only develop and practice a “land ethic” but to educate and encourage others to do so too. Theodore Roosevelt said something along these lines: ‘A nation behaves well if it treats its natural resources as assets which must be passed on to future generations undiminished.’ My business would aim to do just that.”
