Nurturing Sensory WildScapes

Wednesday, Oct. 8
A World of Discovery: Nurturing sensory wildscapes through creative land-healing efforts

Much has been written about landscaping to create a sense of place for humans. But who has a better sense of place than the plants and animals who’ve inhabited our communities for millennia? What do we miss when we focus more on the human-cultural sense of aesthetics than on the sensory experiences of our wild neighbors? Conventional practices interfere with other organisms’ abilities to interact with their environment in hidden and unintended ways. The lexicon of landscaping often reinforces these dynamics. Through science, heart, our powers of observation, and a more expansive language for our approaches to land-healing, we can learn to mitigate these disruptions and create sensory refuges in an increasingly noisy world.

Wednesday, Oct. 15
How to (Gently) Fight Plants with Plants: Enlisting vigorous native plants to reclaim habitat

What’s to love about native plants that grow “like weeds”? Everything! Many species valuable to birds, bees and other wildlife lie dormant in the seedbank, just waiting to escape the mower and sprout. In this class, we’ll discuss how to recruit these hardy troopers to help reclaim habitat. We’ll also explore strategies for removing problematic nonnatives without harming wildlife and their habitats in the process. We’ll learn about many native groundcovers, shrubs, wildflowers, vines and trees that can help hold ground, as well as methods of gradual replacement that eventually shift the balance toward more wildlife-friendly, native-plant-filled habitats.

Wednesday, Oct. 22
You Can Have Your Deer (and Rabbits and Groundhogs) and Your Garden Too!

It’s hard to imagine, but white-tailed deer were once nearly extinct in dozens of states. Their abundance now puts them at odds with many gardeners, who become frustrated by the ineffectiveness of conventional and labor-intensive methods such as repellent spraying and so-called “deer-resistant” species. Add to the mix all the resident rabbits, squirrels, moles and groundhogs, and many gardeners are ready to throw in the trowel. But by understanding plant defense strategies as well as animal behaviors and natural histories, we can create resilient gardens that will support a diversity of life in our home habitats. In this talk, discover how a combination of methods—including mixtures of preferred and unpalatable species, strategic plantings along well-used pathways, and gentle exclusion techniques—can help you trade resistance for peaceful coexistence.

Instructor: Nancy Lawson, Humane Gardener
Nancy Lawson is the author of The Humane Gardener: Nurturing a Backyard Habitat for Wildlife and Wildscape: Trilling Chipmunks, Beckoning Blooms, Salty Butterflies, and other Sensory Wonders of Nature. A nature writer, habitat consultant, public speaker, and founder of The Humane Gardener, she pioneers creative wildlife-friendly landscaping methods. Nancy co-chairs Howard County Bee City in Maryland and co-launched a community science project, Monarch Rx, after discovering a little-known butterfly behavior in her own garden. Her books and other work have been featured in Science Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Oprah magazine, Entomology Today, Ecological Entomology, and American Gardener. Her most recent book, Wildscape, received an honorable mention in the American Horticultural Society’s national book awards and was a finalist for the 2024 AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books.