Saturday, November 8 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Registration/Continental Breakfast starts at 9:30 a.m.) Connecticut College Oliva Hall (in the Cummings Arts Center)
Explore the challenges that shifts in climate and the tendency for more extreme weather events pose to garden design, maintenance and plant health and learn strategies for creating garden spaces that are more resilient to our increasingly unpredictable weather.
Full-day conference includes morning coffee/continental breakfast, four speakers, lunch and a panel discussion. Seating is limited. Registration required. Registration fee is $70.00 or a discounted rate of $60.00 is offered for current members of the Connecticut College Arboretum and Wild Ones.
Connecticut College students, non-profit representatives and/or emerging industry professionals may apply for a limited number of sponsored or discounted registrations by submitting a letter of interest to arbor@conncoll.edu expressing how their attendance to this conference will benefit their professional goals or ecological projects.
Connecticut DEEP Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
The State of Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) is offering the following Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for the 2025 SALT Conference:
Course #: 25-024 Credits: 1 Climate Forward Tree Care (Categories: 3A, 3D, 2)
Course #: 25-025 Credits: 1 Brave New World for a Coastal Forest (Categories: 2, 3D)
Course #: 25-026 Credits: 1 Rain, Rain, Go Away: Reducing Runoff One Garden at a Time (Categories: 3A)
Participants interested in receiving Continuing Education Units (CEUs) must bring a current photo ID.
Session Titles/Descriptions
Resilient coastal landscape design: a multi-pronged approach to heal, protect, and enhance shoreline ecosystems Tara Mahon Vincenta, PLA, FASLA Artemis Landscape Architects
Tara will discuss her unique approach to combining considerations of site, local ecosystems, regulations, and client goals to facilitate resilient coastal residential design. Tara is nationally recognized for her thoughtful, beautifully detailed work that harmonizes environmental sustainability and healing while fostering personal connections for all who encounter her designed spaces. In this talk, Tara will highlight three distinct projects and her approach to creative problem solving for (1) a tidal marshland, (2) constructed dunes on a Long Island Sound beachfront, and (3) inland wetland and coastal buffers at a RI oceanfront property.
Climate Forward Tree Care Christopher Roddick, Sweet Birch Land & Tree
Because trees are rooted in and can’t run away, they must adapt to anything that comes their way. Storms, pests, disease, even development - trees are in a constant state of reacting to the environment around them. Can we help? This talk will look at ways trees adapt to protect themselves and the associate organisms that live with and among them. We’ll discuss what strategies to use and practices to change to help trees as well as the flora, fauna, and funga that rely on them.
Brave New World for a Coastal Forest Juliana Barrett, University of Connecticut Sea Grant College Program
Using the case study of a project to develop a resilient coastal forest on an Avalonia Land Conservancy property in Stonington, CT, Juliana will explore the factors for selecting the right plant for the right place at the right time given our current and future environmental changes.
Rain, Rain, Go Away: Reducing Runoff One Garden at a Time Nicole Davis, Save the Sound
Rethinking how stormwater can be used as a resource to enhance the landscape and create habitat. Like so many things we do at home— small actions can have lasting impacts, especially as more people start to adopt them. Rain gardens are a simple low maintenance garden, that can easily be used to manage stormwater runoff, and can help to reduce localized flooding, recharge groundwater, reduce the burden on public infrastructure, and reduce pollution reaching our waterways.
Panel Discussion Tara Mahon Vincenta, Christopher Roddick, Juliana Barrett, Nicole Davis
Panel discussion responding to registrant-submitted questions about specific sites and situations.
As principal and founder of Artemis Landscape Architects, Tara M. Vincenta, PLA, FASLA, brings 30 years of experience and leadership in designing diverse landscapes including environmental and regional planning studies, multi-family housing, corporate, institutional, and private residential work.
She plays a major role on every project from schematic design through construction administration. Her excellence in design, graphic skills, communication, and horticultural expertise has set her apart and under her direction the firm has won numerous awards from the Connecticut Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects as well as multiple Innovation in Design Awards from Connecticut Cottages and Gardens. In 2019, Tara was inducted into the New England Design Hall of Fame, an honor given by a jury of peers to recognize design professionals for their exceptional caliber of work and significant contributions to their field. In 2024, Vincenta received national recognition from The American Society of Landscape Architects for her contributions to the planting design of The Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial, in Sandy Hook CT. Tara formed Friends of the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial (501c3) in 2025, and currently serves as its President, to ensure the memorial’s elements and original design thrive and continue to serve as a place of reflection and healing over time.
Tara holds a degree in Landscape Architecture from SUNY, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where she graduated with honors. She was inducted as an ASLA Fellow in October 2025. Fellowship is among the highest honors the ASLA bestows on members and recognizes the contributions of individuals to their profession and society at large based on their works, leadership and management, knowledge, and service.
Christopher Roddick is a practicing Arborist and was the head of Arboriculture and Foreman of Grounds at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for 30 years before moving to Northwest Connecticut to start Sweet Birch Land & Tree.
Chris practices Ecological Arboriculture, a holistic approach to caring for trees and land that uses a modern understanding of tree and soil biology, ecology, and organic practices as a base for maintenance and cultivation decisions. He is an ISA Certified Arborist and a NOFA AOLCP.
Juliana Barrett
University of Connecticut Sea Grant College Program
Juliana Barrett is with the University of Connecticut Sea Grant College Program. Her work focuses on resilience, adaptation and coastal habitat management working with Connecticut’s municipalities, NGO’s, state and federal partners and most recently, UConn undergrads through the Climate Corps program. Prior to coming to Sea Grant in 2006, she worked with CT DEP on management plans for state natural areas and for The Nature Conservancy as the Director of the Connecticut River Tidelands Last Great Places Program. She has a doctorate in plant ecology from the University of Connecticut and is a co-author of the Vegetation of Connecticut and several guides describing coastal habitats of Long Island Sound. She likes nothing better than getting wet and muddy in Connecticut’s wetlands or hiking and kayaking through new places.
Nicole Davis
Save the Sound
Nicole Davis is the Watersheds Project Manager for Save the Sound— working to advance watershed planning, green infrastructure, and community resilience projects in the Long Island Sound region. Her work has focused on reducing the impacts of stormwater on local waterways and shifting people's perspective on the importance of how stormwater is managed. Nicole has led the conversion of a dead-end roadway into a community greenspace in New Haven; and the construction of numerous rain gardens across Connecticut and New York, including the transformation of a public park into a one-acre rain garden. Nicole has a background in Marine and Environmental Science and urban planning. She holds a B.S. in Marine Science from Long Island University and earned a M.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University, where her research focused on the connections between land use, water quality, and instream communities.
Smaller American Lawns Today, SALT, is a movement introduced in June of 1997 by Dr. William A. Niering, professor of botany at Connecticut College. The SALT mission is to decrease the size of lawns in America by restoring home grounds to more harmonious, productive, ecologically sound and naturalistic landscapes. SALT offers an alternative vision of the monocultured lawn. As Dr. Niering wrote, “There’s nothing wrong with dandelions, there’s something wrong with people.”
Natural beauty can abound in one's own yard. In our annual SALT Conference, participants learn how to cut back on the size of their lawns and also to have beautiful, sustainable, and friendly home grounds as well. Once established, you will never want to go back to a boring, monocultural lawn!
2014 - Enhancing Wildlife Habitat: Landscaping for Seasonal Food and Cover with Native Plants with Peter Picone Wildlife Biologist at Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
2013 - The Joy of Creating a Beautiful and Bountiful Garden Homeowners often think in terms of planting an ornamental garden and a vegetable garden as two separate endeavors. It is possible, however, to have a garden that is both beautiful and bountiful.
2012 - Gardening in a Changing Environment Experts shared what they are doing now to maintain the sustainability of their land and what they have done when disaster has struck.
2009 - Going Native in New England with featured speaker Douglas W. Tallamy was most informative on the subject of using native plants to promote backyard biodiversity.
