Chesapeake Conservation Landscape Council Turning a New Leaf Conference

Nov 19, 2015 | Blog

Chesapeake Conservation Landscape Council Turning a New Leaf Conference

A few times of year I am able to get away from work and go learn more about eco-friendly landscaping and I love it! The Chesapeake Conservation Landscape Council put on a great conference yesterday at the Sheraton in Towson filled with so many interesting class options that it was hard to choose. I have so much passion for plants and using them for the benefit of people and the planet and at a conference like this I am surrounded by like minded people. It’s fantastic and it inspires me for months! The excitement from this conference will bring me to the next one this winter put together by Larry Weaner, famed native/eco-friendly landscape architect in Pennsylvania. I’ll be sure to write about that conference, New Directions in American Landscape Design, after I go. No let me share some key points that I learned from yesterday’s conference.

Focus on Feeding the Soil, Not the Plant.

Soil biology is a lot more impressive than I realized. Sure- I knew about beneficial organisms like mychorhiza and earth worms. What I didn’t know about was the whole host of many many many other beneficial organisms like algae, nematodes, actinomyces, fungi and many more things that I cannot remember.There are more organisms in 1 tablespoon of soil that there are people on Earth- WOW! All of these organisms work together to bring the plant what it needs. We mess this up greatly when we compact the soil, incorrectly fertilize (like using water soluble fertilizers), till the soil and remove the topsoil. Steve Zien, of the Living Resources Company in California has a ton of experience in organic horticulture. He says that you need to focus on feeding the soil, not the plant. He explained that the common fertilizers we use are water soluble and are directly pollution our water and here is why. If you by a water soluble fertilizer it is high in salt. When you apply that to your soil the beneficial organisms quickly get dried out because of water moving from inside the organisms to the concentration of salty water. This kills the beneficial microorganisms in your soil which are so important for soil structure and for taking nutrients and delivering them to the roots of your plants that you are trying to feed. Another issue with water soluble fertilizer is that it often doesn’t infiltrate into our soils, because most of them are compacted or aren’t planted densely enough so that water grabs the fertilizer you put down and most of the fertilizer washes off into local waterways. A much better way is to reduce compaction of your soils and feed them directly by applying an insoluble fertilizer like a topdressing of compost or a natural fertilizer like Espoma. These products will attract earthworms up to your soil every night, greatly improving soil structure. They’ll give the beneficial micro organisms in your soil food and they are much less likely to wash off in the water. Steven claims that there is literature to show that if we increase organic matter on top of our soils by 2% we could reverse global warming. That is quite a claim that I would like to see substantiated a little more but for sure increasing organic matter would give you the best looking garden and lawn on the block! A few more important takeaways from this talk- tilling can greatly reduce your soil structure so it’s better to top dress your natural fertilizer and leave it- the organisms will do the work to bring it down to the soil.

 

Climate Change and Landscape Adaptation

The climate zones are changing and in 30 years we’ll have a climate a lot hotter and wetter like Georgia. More large scale eco friendly design for our development is needed. I do see so many improvements with many plantings at Universities and even parking lots and new government buildings being green and full of native plants. Its exciting and encouraging to see! Curb cuts with water flowing into a bioretension area is everywhere in Howard County. The new Whole Foodsin Columbia has a fantastic ecologically design landscape. Go see it!

One thing that comes up with the climate change talk is- what will happen to the plants that are native to here? Will they adapt? Will they die off? If we plant plants native to the South to accommodate for rising temps and rainfall will they work since plants are actually adapted to soil type? Personally I think nature is crafty and while we are changing the game in terms of warmer temperatures and higher sea levels from our activities, its hard for me to believe that the plants will all die off. They are scrapy little things- I would think that some species would die out and others would adapt and survive and thrive. I am not a botanist- I wonder if any predictions (by botanists) can be made by looking at those plants that do well in warmer, wetter weather. I also think the warmer wetter weather would have an effect on the soils as well? Please comment below if you have thoughts on these things.

How can you help you ask? Be wise about your energy use. Plant a tree or 100 trees. Get solar panels if you can. Get a more fuel efficient car and drive less. Eat less meat. Grow more natives to support your local eco system. Keep your stormwater on your property. Each little effort helps!

 

Rain Gardens That Work Better

We install a lot of rain gardens and I am working to improve the look of them. We are still relatively new to rain gardens in the Northeast here and while we have a good start, the visual aesthetic of our rain gardens could improve. In trying to make the rain gardens look like organized horticultural plantings we can inadvertently make something that, well, just doesn’t look great. If the rain garden is located in the shade, where deer graze it can be a little tricky to make an interesting looking garden, with natives (as are primarily used in the rain garden designs) that will tolerate all of these conditions. I am on a quest to hone a series of rain garden designs that function really well in Howard County, MD area and are gorgeous and eco friendly!

rain-garden-credit-tom-potterfield-1140x293

The talk by Claudia West on making rain gardens work better was great. She showed some photos of some of the rain gardens that have not thrived. They were designed using more of a horticultural model of groupings/masses of like plants all at medium and taller heights with few plantings covering the base of the soil. She recommended interplanting different species with a few plants that were specimens (structural element in the design) and larger randomly placed throughout the garden. Then the rest of the soil gets planted densely with grasses and perennials (the seasonal show stoppers) interplanted. The next layer is a low growing grass or sedge or short plant that fills in all the spaces in the lower garden. This helps the rest of the plants establish, outcompetes the weeds and absorbs a lot more water because of the deep and complex rooting of all the different species together in one place. It’s a beautiful, no stunning, creation of a design plant community and will be more successful than some of our current pedestrian rain garden designs! Her new book, coauthored by Thomas Rainer, is a gem! See an article about it here. 

Mention book by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West

 

Larry Weaners’ Keynote

Larry Weaner is a landscape architect from Pennsylvania who has been designing with native plants for 38 years! It is always inspiring to hear Larry talk. He talked about working with nature in his garden designs- keeping some of the existing landscape and replanning by removing some species and adding some more. He talked about designing plant communities that change/succeed over the years. Native Americans manipulated the landscape and even ‘managed’ all of California before we came. They worked with nature and some plants coevolved under their care. When you looked at some of the landscapes managed by them they were wild but organized, but not organized enough (like today’s horticulture) to be able to tell the land was being managed- it was subtle. Larry showed us some impressive photos of large scale meadow projects where the plantings were designed to be wild and function with no maintenance over time. Meadows would be planned for plant succession and the way they would change over the course of 1-15 years with much thought. Some meadows would be dominant with black eyed susans the first 2 years to be taken over by another species or 2 for the next few years. Then at year 7 another dominant species would move in naturally because it takes 7 years for that species to establish. It was a really neat talk about approaching landscaping from a different, a LIVING, model. I look forward to the conference Larry sponsors each year at the Morris Arboretum in Pennsylvania called the New Directions In The American Landscape in January.

Some of Larry’s landscapes- amazing!

Landscape Design by Larry Weaner

 

hell gate phyllis

 

images

 

All in all this conference was fantastic! I really enjoyed coming together with ecological plant enthusiast and I look forward to next year!

Shop Natives by Category

Signup For Our Newsletter

Loading