When designing any garden, there is an opportunity to eschew the norms of beauty as the only priority. With careful planning, we can create a space that works in harmony with nature, expands biodiversity, builds healthy soil, and nurtures pollinators and other wildlife. Let’s learn from natural plant communities to increase ecosystem function and climate resilience at home in our designed gardens. From the fundamentals of seasonal and yearly plant succession, to using plant reproduction and sociability to fill ecological niches, the right native plant communities make all the difference for beautiful gardens both wildlife and people crave. Benjamin Vogt owns Monarch Gardens, a prairie-inspired design firm. Benjamin is primarily a plantsman with deep prairie roots. His designs are 100% native plants and his firm specializes in converting lawn to prairie gardens that build biodiversity and support pollinators. His landscapes have been featured in Garden Design, Fine Gardening, and The American Gardener. Benjamin speaks nationally on a variety of topics and is the author of A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future and the forthcoming Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design (spring 2022).
Webinar will take place June 16 at noon and is free, but registration required at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-fundamentals-of-garden-layers/
