February 10, 2019 - Boston Flora

Wednesday, February 20, 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm – Finding Common Ground: In Pursuit of “Sustainable Landscaping” Webinar

February 10, 2019 by Boston Flora

Most landscape professionals have similar goals: happy customers, beautiful plantings, and a healthy environment. This free Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar presentation on February 20 from 12:30 – 1:30 seeks to broaden the dialog among landscape professionals who share these goals and to encourage all landscape professionals to work together to establish a new meaning for the term sustainable landscaping.

With a premise that the common goals are beautiful landscapes created with healthy environmental stewardship, this discussion will address positive communication and relationship building strategies that help to achieve these goals. As part of the discussion, examples of less successful (and often counterproductive) marketing strategies will be addressed.

Landscape professionals often need to think and work beyond the property line boundaries whether the broader context is necessitated by multiple stakeholders, regulations, certification, or community/customer goals such as water quality protection or wildlife support. In the midst of these “big picture” issues, effective communication is the foundation for success.

Whether farmers or gardeners, there is much work to be done to educate ourselves, as well as property owners, about the value of ecological landscape practices that result in a healthier and more sustainable environment. Let’s all begin with positive, honest, and straight-forward messaging.

Gary Fish is the Maine State Horticulturist, a position that he has held for the past two years. Previously, Gary was the Manager of Pesticide Programs for the Maine Board of Pesticides Control, a position he held for 28 years. Gary’s background also includes being a Licensed Professional Forester since 1985, Kents Hill Forestry Services, and a 10 year member and former Chairman of the Arborist Examining Board. Gary self identifies as an “entomologist from birth” and was inspired to love plants by his mother who grew beautiful roses and rock gardens. Gary is also a landscape and nature photographer (Phish Photography). Gary holds a B.S. in Forest and Wildlife Management from University of Maine, College of Forest Resources.

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Tuesday, February 19, 6:30 pm – The Invention of Rivers

February 10, 2019 by Boston Flora

Separating land and water is not just an act of division; it is also an act of creation. It creates land and water from ubiquitous wetness, defining them on either side of a line. It is one of the first acts of design, setting out a ground of habitation with a line that has largely been naturalized in features such as the coastline, the riverbank, and the water’s edge. These features are subjected to artistic representations, scientific inquiry, infrastructural engineering, and landscape design with little awareness of the act that brought them into being. Today, however, with the increasing frequency of flood and, not unrelatedly, sea-level rise attributed to climate change, the line of separation has come into sharp focus with proposals for walls, levees, natural defenses, and land retirement schemes. These responses raise questions on where the line is drawn, but they also raise questions on the separation that this line facilitates. Is this separation found in nature or does nature follow from its assertion? Are there other beginnings to design and consequently, other possible natures and grounds of habitation?

Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design on February 19 at 6:30 pm at Gund Hall Piper Auditorium, Quincy Street, Cambridge, for a free public lecture on The Invention of Rivers by Dilip da Cunha.

Dilip da Cunha is an architect and planner based in Philadelphia and Bangalore. He is co-director of the Risk and Resilience program at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and Adjunct Professor at the GSAPP, Columbia University. He is author with Anuradha Mathur of Mississippi Floods: Designing a Shifting Landscape (2001); Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain (2006); Soak: Mumbai in an Estuary (2009); and Design in the Terrain of Water (2014). His new book, The Invention of Rivers: Alexander’s Eye and Ganga’s Descent, was just published by the University of Pennsylvania Press (http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15913.html). In 2017, da Cunha along with Anuradha Mathur received a Pew Fellowship Grant in recognition of their collaborative work. They are currently working on a multimedia exhibition titled The Ocean of Rain. http://www.mathurdacunha.com

Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.

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