Boston Flora

Tag: Darrel Morrison

  • Thursday, February 23, 2:00 pm Eastern – Beauty of the Wild, Online

    For more than six decades, Darrel Morrison has drawn inspiration from the varied landscapes of his life—from the Iowa prairie, to Texas prickly pear scrub, to the maple-beech-hemlock forests of Door County, Wisconsin, to the banks of the Oconee River in Piedmont, Georgia. He has been guided as well by the teachings of Jens Jensen, who believed that we can not successfully copy nature but can get a theme from it and use key species to evoke that essential feeling. In native plant gardens at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, New York Botanical Garden, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Morrison has blended communities of native plants in distillations of prairie, woodland, and coastal meadow. At Storm King Art Center, his landscapes capture the essence of prairie grasslands and native meadows. These ever-evolving compositions were designed to reintroduce diversity, natural processes, and naturally occurring patterns—the “beauty of the wild”—into the landscape. Darrel will speak online with The Garden Conservancy on February 23 at 2 pm Eastern. $5 for Garden Conservancy members, $15 for nonmembers. Register HERE.

    A recording of this webinar will be sent to all registrants a few days after the event. We encourage you to register, even if you cannot attend the live webinar.

    Members of the Frank & Anne Cabot Society for planned giving have complimentary access to Garden Conservancy webinars. All Cabot Society members will automatically be sent the link to participate on the morning of the webinar. For more information about the Cabot Society, please contact Sarah Parker at sparker@gardenconservancy.org or 845.424.6500, ext. 214.

    Darrel Morrison, FASLA, is a renowned landscape designer and educator ecology-based approach has influenced generations of practitioners. He has taught landscape design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1969-1983) and University of Georgia (1983-2005). Morrison lived and worked in New York City from 2005 until 2015 and now lives in Madison, WI where he is an honorary Faculty Associate in the Department of Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Wisconsin.

  • Friday, August 6, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Beauty of the Wild, Online

    In Beauty of the Wild, Darrel Morrison tells stories of people and places that have nourished his career as a teacher and a designer of nature-inspired landscapes. Growing up on a small farm in southwestern Iowa, Morrison was transported by the subtle beauties of the native prairie landscape—the movement of grasses in the wind, clouds across the sky, their shadows over the plain. As a graduate student at University of Wisconsin–Madison, he encountered the Curtis Prairie, one of the first places in the world where ecological restoration was practiced. There he saw the beauty inherent in ecological diversity.

    For more than six decades, Morrison has drawn inspiration from the varied landscapes of his life—from the Iowa prairie to Texas prickly pear scrub to the maple-beech-hemlock forests of Door County, Wisconsin, to the banks of the Oconee River in Piedmont Georgia. He has been guided as well by the teachings of Jens Jensen, who believed that we can’t successfully copy nature but can get a theme from it and use key species to evoke that essential feeling. In native plant gardens at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, New York Botanical Garden, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Morrison has blended communities of native plants in distillations of prairie, woodland, and coastal meadow. At Storm King Art Center, his landscapes capture the essence of prairie grasslands and native meadows. These ever-evolving compositions were designed to reintroduce diversity, natural processes, and naturally occurring patterns—the “beauty of the wild”—into the landscape.

    This online event on August 6 at 6 pm is part of Native Plant Trust’s Meet the Authors series. $12 for NPT members, $15 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.nativeplanttrust.org/events/beauty-wild/

  • Wednesday, May 27 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm – Mountain Top Arboretum: Timber Frame Education Center from Catskill Native Trees Webinar

    Join Marc Wolf on May 27 from 12 – 1 Eastern Time for an inspiring visit to the Mountain Top Arboretum forest. The forest provided the timber for the construction of the Arboretum’s new timber frame Education Center. This unique building demonstrates the beauty of 21 different tree species and the talent of local artisans, including the noted timber frame architect Jack Sobon.

    The landscape phase of the project, designed by landscape architect Jamie Purinton, uses plants native to the Catskill Mountains and a system of six separate Rain Gardens that catch and filter water runoff. Marc will discuss the different plant communities represented and individual favorite trees, shrubs and perennials chosen.

    The goal is that these beautiful plantings will inspire and educate visitors about native plants as well as water and land stewardship, important tenets of the Arboretum’s mission.

    A short documentary on the building of the Education Center captures the essence of the project.

    Marc Wolf joined Mountain Top Arboretum in 2016 as Director of Horticulture and became Executive Director in 2017.  He received his BA from Williams College, is a graduate of New York Botanical Garden’s School of Professional Horticulture and interned at Chanticleer Garden. Marc studied with the noted landscape architect Darrel Morrison and worked as his field assistant on projects at New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden and for private clients.  As a writer and performer working in theater, film and television, Marc received OBIE and National Endowment for the Arts Awards, among others. Marc enjoys hiking, skiing, fishing and exploring the native plant communities of the Catskills. Marc agrees with the late, great poet Mary Oliver that “the song you heard singing in the leaf when you / were a child / is singing still.”

    The webinar is free. Register at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-mountain-top-arboretum-timber-frame-education-center-from-catskill-native-trees/

  • Wednesday, October 17, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Landscaping for Bird Diversity

    This Landscaping for Bird Diversity workshop, to be held Wednesday, October 17 from 5:30 – 7:30 at Great Hall Lodge at Cedar Hill, 265 Beaver Street in Waltham, is organized by Grow Native Massachusetts, and taught by Claudia Thompson, the founder of Grow Native.

    Do you aspire to create landscapes with genuine ecological value for a wide array of avian species from songbirds, to raptors, owls, woodpeckers, and more? Claudia will lead an in-depth exploration of the principles and practices for achieving this objective, based on understanding the essential habitat requirements for bird survival.

    Our examination starts, of course, with the importance of native plants. Then we will take a deeper look at the value of different canopy layers, preferred planting strategies, techniques for providing water, and the critical role of active ecological systems to avian survival. We finish by considering our human interactions with birds. What are the pros and cons of feeding birds directly, through seed and suet? Do nest boxes really help our native songbirds to breed? And given the threats from both human activity and non-native bird species, how can we tilt the balance in favor of our native songbirds?

    Claudia Thompson founded Grow Native Massachusetts in 2010. She is nationally recognized as a leader in the native plant movement, and was featured as one of the Wild Ones in Garden Design magazine along with Doug Tallamy, Darrel Morrison, and others. She has had an extensive career as an ecologist and environmental educator. Claudia’s happiest moments are spent in her own garden where she has recorded 77 species of birds including woodpeckers, migrating songbirds, and even rare woodcocks, all using the habitat she and her husband have created on their small urban parcel in Cambridge.

    $28 for members of Grow Native Massachusetts, $38 for nonmembers. Sign up at www.grownativemass.org, or email mgallogly@grownativemass.org.

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  • Wednesday and Thursday, March 7 & 8 – ELA Conference & Eco-Marketplace

    Looking for New Ideas? Solutions? Inspiration? Immerse yourself in Ecological Landscape Alliance’s two-day conference on March 7 and 8 at UMass Amherst. From the practical to the inspirational, join them as they explore a range of topics, from designing and maintaining landscapes for maximum carbon capture to looking at the intuitive side of design.

    New this year, Food for Thought is a ticketed breakfast where you can nourish your body while you challenge your mind – all before the first session begins. Table topics will be hosted by experts who will be on hand to answer you questions and spark lively conversation.

    March 7 includes:
    * Two workshops: Designing for Carbon Sequestration and
    Ecological Methods of Maximizing Landscape Productivity and Potential
    * Keynote speaker: Darrel Morrison, ecologically-based landscape architect, whose talk is entitled Landscape Design as Ecological Art

    March 8 features eight Sessions, a Design Building Tour, and three Idea Exchanges covering a range of ecological topics. Session sampling:
    * Quest for Resilience: Adaptive Strategies for Sustainable Planting Design
    * Nature Integration – The Future of Design
    * Beyond the War on Invasive Species
    * Authentic, Whole, and Alive: Design Lessons from Wild Landscapes

    Hotel rooms at Hotel UMass are available to participants for $115 per night. Reservations will be taken no later than February 25, 2018. Register online or call (877) 822-2110 and specify the ELA group promotional code: ELC18C. The discount is NOT available at check-in. Register for the conference ($20 – $330) at http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/ela-conference-eco-marketplace-2018/

  • Wednesday, March 5, 7:00 pm – Landscape Design as Ecological Art

    Explore how ecology can inform landscape design – creating environments that are rich, ecologically sound, and “of their place” – while they are dynamic systems that change over time, on Wednesday, March 5, beginning at 7 pm at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge. The lecture is free and is sponsored by Grow Native Massachusetts.

    Darrel Morrison, the speaker,  has been inspired by Jens Jensen, Aldo Leopold, and the native landscape with its patterns and processes.  Learn about his exceptional projects: the Native Plant Garden at the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, the recent Native Flora Garden Extension at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and others.

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