Daily Archives: October 26, 2024

Who doesn’t love butterflies? Habitat cultivation is a vital component of creating ecologically healthy landscapes, particularly in urban settings. But traditional landscaping practices rarely take biodiversity into consideration, and there aren’t yet guidelines to follow. For ecological horticulturist Rebecca McMackin, biodiversity is central to landscape management. In her 10 years as Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Rebecca oversaw 85 acres of diverse, organic landscapes, all managed to support birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. Join us to learn how to use ecological insight and experimentation to develop new management strategies – and why careful observation and documentation of the insects, birds, and other wildlife in your gardens is crucial to their success. Rebecca will speak online in an American Horticultural Society talk on November 7 at 7 pm Eastern. $15 for AHS members, $20 for nonmembers. Register at www.ahsgardening.org

Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist and garden designer. She is Arboretum Curator for Woodlawn Cemetery, managing one of the best tree collections in New York. She spent a decade as Director of Horticulture of Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she managed 85 acres of diverse parkland organically. Their research into cultivating urban biodiversity and ethical management strategies has influenced thousands of people and entire urban parks systems to adopt similar approaches. McMackin writes, lectures, and teaches on ecological landscape management and pollination ecology, as well as designs the rare public garden. She has been published by and featured in the New York Times, the Landscape Institute, on NPR and PBS, and somehow gave a TED talk. She holds MScs from Columbia University and University of Victoria in landscape design and biology and recently completed the Loeb Fellowship at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.