HOW DO THREE MORE 90-minute distractions from the seemingly countless world noise sound correct about now, with every session providing an up to date have a look at a facet of gardening I discover most difficult: design?
I’m particularly in search of concepts for placing my more and more native-focused plant decisions collectively in ways in which add as much as panorama parts which might be each lovely and ecologically hard-working—and may work anyplace from a metropolis avenue (above) to a rural setting.
I’ve been grateful to your persevering with enthusiasm for my “Backyard 2.0” webinar collection—I do know I loved our summer time meet-ups, too, and discovered loads from the skilled company. So what do you say we simply carry on studying collectively by way of the autumn, with a month-to-month gathering for an skilled discuss and Q&A?
I feel that fall—earlier than the temptation of winter’s catalog season or the urgency of spring—is the best time to suppose forward about potential backyard enhancements and plantings to return. Because the season winds down, I’m making notes on what labored and didn’t, and in search of aesthetic inspiration and sensible, tactical options. Possibly you might be, too?
With that in thoughts, I’ve invited three proficient presenters whose work I drastically admire to educate us and reply our questions. Each will take a recent, ecologically centered have a look at a facet of design and planting, together with:
designing gardens that transcend a visible deal with, and supply a way of expertise;
transitioning the entrance garden to extra variety, step-by-step;
supporting native bees with strategically designed “mushy touchdown” plantings.
The way it all works: For practically 4 years, my Digital Backyard Membership operated solely on a subscription mannequin, the place members bought entry to an entire semester of courses at a time. This spring I launched a brand new format, which due to your optimistic response continued this summer time and can resume this autumn.
I’ll as soon as once more host month-to-month 90-minute workshops you should purchase individually (or join all three at a 14 % low cost!). Attend your selection(s) stay, or watch the recorded model for 3 months afterward, at your leisure.
Tickets for these standalone webinars are simply $29, or $75 for the collection, in hopes that they are going to be a seamless vivid spot.
The lineup to select from:
Sept. 25, 2025, 1-2:30 PM Jap
‘Designing for the Expertise: Composition in Apply,’ with Preston Montague
THE “what, the place and what number of?” of planting design can stymie even skilled gardeners, panorama architect Preston Montague is aware of. He educated as an artist, and says probably the most profitable gardens are greater than only a visible deal with—they’re an expertise.
What You’ll Be taught in This Class:
“Designing for the Expertise: Composition in Apply,” which pulls on Preston’s classical artwork coaching, goals to assist gardeners make landscape-design selections across the query of what goes the place.
By simplifying ideas of composition—like rhythm, proportion, and emphasis—and seeking to different artwork kinds like music for inspiration, too, Preston presents easy concerns for what he calls “choreographing an expertise.”
Find out how the outdated adage “proper plant, proper place” goes past plant survivability, to use to how we prepare crops to encourage explicit reactions from guests. He’ll additionally supply easy techniques that may hasten decision-making and assist set up the design course of.
The concept of shaping a panorama to craft an expertise was a significant “aha” second for Preston, and it resonated deeply for him as a painter. Many painters strategically smear paint throughout a canvas to evoke a desired response; in an identical means, reverse-engineering a panorama expertise—breaking it down into “crimson flowering crops right here, wall there, tree over there”—is an enchanting method to critique an area and uncover its design intent.
“Understanding that have is the product, and that instruments like rhythm and emphasis can function a sort of design code, might be liberating,” he says, “particularly for these with extra left-brained inclinations.”
Come along with your inquiries to ask stay in school or submit prematurely (with a photograph hooked up for design and plant ID assist, as an illustration).
You’ll depart Preston’s discuss and the Q&A chance that follows feeling impressed, and stuffed with concepts to your personal house, irrespective of how small.
Order a ticket for this webinar or all three right here.
About Preston: Preston Montague is a panorama architect and artist based mostly in Durham, N.C., working to strengthen relationships between individuals and the pure world. His environmental design studio deploys artwork, horticulture, and panorama structure within the service of constructing locations which have which means and ecological depth. When not in studio, Preston enjoys educating panorama structure at North Carolina A&T State College and mountain climbing the wilder locations.
Oct. 23, 2025, 1-2:30 PM Jap
‘Garden to Meadow: A Gentle and Gradual Transition,’ with Sara Weaner Cooper
AARE you contemplating transitioning some or your entire garden to one thing extra biodiverse—like a wildflower meadow—however the course of appears daunting? Sara Weaner Cooper undertook such a mission three rising seasons in the past, and can share her first-hand expertise, together with ingenious tactical insights (like the way you don’t need to smother or take away all the previous garden first).
What You’ll Be taught in This Class:
In April 2022, Sara and Evan Cooper moved into their new house in a suburban Philadelphia neighborhood. After one spring and summer time of constantly mowing their practically 5,000-square-foot entrance garden, Sara eagerly initiated the method of transitioning the garden right into a native wildflower meadow.
She needed to keep away from 4 issues, nevertheless: chemical use, heavy labor, smothering, and an early-stage ugly part. Leaving the turf in place and collaborating along with her father, the longtime panorama designer Larry Weaner, she started a turf-to-meadow conversion course of that relied on light-touch actions that concurrently weakened the garden and strengthened her newly planted meadow.
After three rising seasons, the outcomes exceeded expectations…sufficient to be featured in “The New York Occasions” in 2024 and by the BBC in 2025. Be taught the sensible steps they took, the successes and challenges they’ve to date encountered—together with how they’ve positively communicated about this very different-looking entrance yard with their neighbors—and their plans for guiding the meadow to maturity.
Come along with your inquiries to ask stay in school or submit prematurely (with a photograph hooked up for design and plant ID assist, as an illustration).
Order a ticket for this webinar or all three right here.
About Sara: Sara Weaner Cooper, New Instructions within the American Panorama’s government director, started her function with NDAL in 2018 as instructional program coordinator. Sara and her husband Evan Cooper’s house panorama, an experimental but extremely profitable natural transition from garden to native meadow, was featured by the BBC in 2025 and in “The New York Occasions” in 2024. She holds a M.A. in anthropology and schooling from Academics School, Columbia College, and a B.A. in anthropology and schooling from Bryn Mawr School. In 2024 NDAL acquired the American Horticultural Society (AHS) Award for Horticultural Innovation, which acknowledges a person/group “whose improvements have made the sphere of horticulture extra sustainable and accessible to all.”
Nov. 13, 2025, 1-2:30 PM Jap
‘Keystone Vegetation and ‘Tender Landings’ Plantings for Native Bees,’ with Heather Holm
WHILE the monarch butterfly is maybe probably the most well-known insect specialist (its caterpillars completely feed on milkweed), many native bee species even have extremely specialised diets. Pollinator skilled and award-winning writer Heather Holm will train us learn how to help extra of those critically essential bugs and different key beneficials in our landscapes with strategic plant decisions and ingenious placement of these crops in what she calls “mushy landings.”
What You’ll Be taught in This Class:
Feminine native bee specialists, or oligoleges, gather pollen from a restricted vary of native crops—generally only one plant genus or species, or a number of genera inside one plant household. A few of these pollen host crops are thought of “keystone crops” as a result of they supply crucial meals assets for a big variety of native bee species. On this presentation, you’ll find out about these keystone crops, the circumstances they thrive in inside pure habitats, and learn how to incorporate lots of them into your pollinator-friendly plantings.
Heather can even introduce the idea of a “mushy landings” planting—a various, native planting strategically positioned underneath native keystone bushes. These plantings supply very important meals and shelter for native bees, in addition to for different useful bugs equivalent to caterpillars, beetles, lacewings and extra. By incorporating these crops and habitats into your backyard, you’ll be able to assist create a thriving, sustainable ecosystem for pollinators and different wildlife.
Order a ticket for this webinar or all three right here.
About Heather: Heather Holm is a pollinator conservationist and award-winning writer of 4 books: “Pollinators of Native Vegetation” (2014), “Bees” (2017), “Wasps” (2021), and “Frequent Native Bees of the Jap United States” (2022). Each “Bees” and “Wasps” have gained a number of ebook awards, together with the American Horticultural Society E-book Award (2018 and 2022 respectively). She is the founder and chair of Minnesota Native Bees, a web-based subject information illustrating the native bees of Minnesota and past. Heather’s experience consists of the interactions between native pollinators and native crops, and the pure historical past and biology of native bees and predatory wasps. Her work has been featured in “The New York Occasions,” “Minneapolis Star Tribune,” and elsewhere.
