Native meadows are increasingly popular, particularly as alternatives to lawn, yet few types of landscapes are more misunderstood. Inadequate planning and use of poorly adapted plants commonly lead to failure. Better results can be achieved when the patterns and processes of naturally occurring meadows are incorporated into all aspects of design, installation, and management. More than one-year wonders, meadow plantings modeled on actual meadow communities provide long-term, easily managed landscapes that harbor a myriad of birds and butterflies, and provide color and texture throughout the year.

Join native meadow expert Larry Weaner on Wednesday, April 1 at 7 pm at the Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge, to learn concrete, practical ways of creating dynamic and stunning long-lived meadows. Case studies of both multi-acre projects and small-scale residential meadows will be shown.

Larry Weaner has been creating native landscapes since 1977. His firm has a national reputation for combining ecological restoration with garden design traditions. His projects have received numerous awards and been included on tours given by the American Horticultural Society, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, and many other organizations. He is the founder of New Directions in the American Landscape, a conference series with a national following that has run for more than two decades. This free program is sponsored by Grow Native Massachusetts.