Natural Landscape Design

Monday, January 25, March 1, and Saturday, May 15

Join landscape designer Larry Weaner as he guides students through the step-by-step process of designing native, ecology-based landscapes for New England. Specifics will include site analysis, species selection and arrangement, and the creation of ecological, process-based management specifications. Techniques to artfully combine all of these considerations will be woven throughout the program.

Three sessions, two virtual and one in the field at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, will span a three-month period. Intersession projects will be assigned for completion by students between course sessions.

In order to provide a more interactive educational experience, course registration is limited to 30 students. Students will have login access to an online portal where they will view course materials and submit their assignments. Registration closes at 5pm, January 24th.
CEUs available

Session 1
This virtual session will illustrate a step-by-step process for designing landscapes that utilize site-adapted native species and incorporate the ecological processes that govern their establishment and proliferation in the wild. Specific emphasis will include analysis of site conditions, analysis of the site history that led to those conditions, plant characteristics that are crucial to ecology -based design but seldom included in horticultural references, and guidance for incorporating successionincorporating succession into the design.
Intersession Assignment: Formulate a design based on the information provided in Session 1. Students are encouraged either to select an actual project that they have been contracted to develop, or their own home landscape.

Session 2
This virtual session will begin with an interactive review of selected student designs, followed by a discussion of ecological process-based landscape management procedures for both natural areas (woods, meadows, shrub thicket) and naturalistic gardens. The program will also include guidance for establishing vegetative goals, specifying short -term procedures to achieve them, as well as long- term management practices to be initiated once those goals have been reached.
Intersession Assignment: Create a management plan for previously submitted design.

Session 3
This in-person, on-site session will begin with an interactive review of selected student management plans. Instructors will then lead a tour of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and its managed natural areas to discuss the real-world applicability of the techniques described in Sessions 1 & 2. The course will close with an interactive discussion about how Sessions 1-3 can be applied to landscape practice in the real world.