Reflections on the Landscape

A moment outside the auditorium- a glimpse of the ideas in the High Line landscape.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the New Directions in the American Landscape (NDAL) conference, and I walked away inspired, re-focused, and incredibly fascinated by the intersection of historical context, cultural connections, modern practices, and the challenging realities of my team's work at the center of horticulture, ecology, and land management.

Larry Weaner, Principal of Larry Weaner Landscape Associates (LWLA) and founder of NDAL, is an industry professional I’ve followed closely for many years. He shared his work throughout the world around developing best practices of landscape stewardship, finding meadow management strategies like exploiting differences in plants, and better understanding the North American landscape and seed bank. He shared anecdotes and insights about the importance of finding the right management strategy that will manage warm season aggressive or invasive plants when land managers don’t want to negatively impact our native, warm season prairie plant palette. A tough, yet important and rewarding task. An example shared by Larry- many weed seeds travel into designed and managed planting areas through game trails. Catching “spots” like the beginning of a white-tail’s adventures through our managed land can ultimately reduce pressures that can quickly spread. 

Our growing season in the Great Plains is short- stewardship choices can be the difference between an impactful garden and a space in need of rejuvenation, help, or abandonment. The reality of many public and private landscape spaces, particularly on the prairie, is that there is a lack of resources to adequately manage and sustain the plant communities present. Or perhaps,  it’s all in the perspective of how it is managed. 

A Sense of Place in Context

Liz Kennedy, of LKLA, a NYC-based landscape architecture firm, used examples of her opportunities to work in Jamaica. This is a region of our world that experiences landscape management and landscape function in a different way than the realities of the United States and Global North. She asked thoughtful questions about the importance of the context of our projects. While each project and client I encounter as a garden designer is unique and keeps me thinking about the ecology, horticulture, and stewardship of the site I am analyzing and designing, Liz has reframed some of my site analysis process, particularly if designing for a particular community or culture-

1. Where do people believe they belong in this world? 

2. How does that belief shape their relationship with nature, natural systems, and the environment? 

3. What do we understand about that belief?

4. How is it interpreted as a basis of environmental planning? 

Thought-provoking. Intentional.  And the sort of questions I find inspirational to better develop unique, environmentally-aware, and culturally-appropriate landscape spaces. While I couldn't possibly capture the conference in a synopsis post, I'm inspired by folks who ask thoughtful and detailed questions around the roles we step into, and the work we center ourselves around. 

This small town, South Dakota born and raised garden designer and horticulturist, found himself in the big city- surrounded by professionals working to produce high-quality, culturally-considerate, and historically-relevant work. While the Midwest firms and designers were a small part of this particular in-person audience, I was fortunate to attend the conference virtually in 2024, and knew this was a crowd of like-minded individuals. 

Why travel? Why take the resources and productive winter design hours to make the journey across the country in a stuffy airplane cabin? At 6’5” in height, I found myself asking this same question after the third or fourth weather delay of the trip. Snow and ice speckled the country in January, of course, but there wasn’t a conference I could imagine myself at more.

Perspective. Raw experience. That’s my quick response to “Why?” 

Fire in the Landscape

Margo Robbins, the cofounder and Executive Director of the Cultural Fire Management Council, began her presentation with a flower dance song in gratitude. A song written by her sister, in gratitude for the bark of the inner layer of the Maple tree, used to create a skirt for the cultural ceremony of her tribe, the Yurok Tribe of Northern California. The room of several hundred people was in awe- including me. She spoke with clarity around the connection between plant communities, people, and fire. 

“Fire is a powerful spirit..with the ability to create new life, and also to destroy…it is medicine on the land.” 

While sharing her thoughts and experience,  she emphasized the historical past of our country to forbid burning land. For much of the 20th century, Indigenous communities were treated unfairly and violently for burning the land they knew. Plant materials for basketry, herbs, foods, and medicine, were choked out by invasive species and dense understory brush, particularly in California and the West coast.

The Cultural Fire Management Council has since worked with CalFire to develop a “happy-medium” of prescribed burns with cultural emphasis. In addition to plant life revitalization, pests like ticks and weevils are managed under prescribed burns, and wildlife like deer are able to thrive and provide for the communities. Elk, on the other hand, are a species still not present on the land they once roamed. A photo example of the Bootleg Fires in Oregon emphasized the forest areas that were thinned and prescribed-burned- they were the only lands not completely changed by the devastating fires in 2021. 

Outside the Auditorium

I was also fortunate to spend a morning meandering a few of New York City’s public park spaces that place an emphasis on horticulture, layered planting design, an interest and focus of mine, and ultimately, found myself in a snowy, sleety mixture I am quite familiar with. The High Line and Little Island Park both layer native and exotic plant species, with layers of sedges, grasses, and forbs to create year-round awe and interest for locals and visitors, despite the frigid temperatures and flurries in the sky. I was inspired. And found myself in reflection around the lack of seasonal interest in our local parks- layered plantings for our eyes to be drawn to, and for wildlife-birds, squirrels, deer, insects, bats, and many more to find nesting materials, food sources, and protection.

I recently prepared an urban landscape development plan as an initial framework for a community in South Dakota close to my heart, and encouraged the importance of layered plantings to create more of this for the community. Many barriers and challenges to dense plantings were presented in a quick site walk-through, particularly for urban landscapes like this with limited municipal resources for stewardship. I’ll continue to emphasize that the future of our landscapes without ecological-awareness is simply not the world we want to live in. 

Finding Common Ground

Preston Montague, a Landscape Architect and Educator in the Durham, North Carolina region connected to a similar thought process around his work with land developers and builders in his region.

Ripping the soil. Rearranging plant communities. Changing wildlife, pollinator, and insect populations that have relied on the lands now turned to subdivisions. 

He found meeting the development needs of the community while educating the value and benefits of his work was the best way to meet them where they were. Speaking the language of builders and developers concerned about the value they bring to their customer is something I’ll continue to work towards, while emphasizing ecologically-grounded work. Preston spoke with confidence, and has translated this work into education for students and homeowners. I’ve begun to imagine how I can contribute to an educational series relevant to my own garden experiences and our region’s audience. 

I produced a quick overview of my travels and NDAL experience for our community at Norm’s Greenhouse and Nursery in a recent blog and newsletter, and felt I couldn’t capture the complete essence of this conference and wanted to share more about the speakers that made this conference so impactful. I know this only touches the surface-but I hope creates perspective for land owners, managers, designers, developers and beyond looking to consider garden design with the eye of an ecologist and land steward- and perhaps, begin to understand a bit more of the cultural-significance of the sites we work with each day. 

Reach out. I’d love to discuss more.