Saturday, November 7
9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Registration/Continental Breakfast starts at 8:30 a.m.
Cummings Art Center, Connecticut College

The transition zone between a cultivated landscape and a natural forested area provides unique opportunities (and challenges!) in a home landscape. The strategic use of native understory trees and shrubs can provide screening and other important landscape functions as well as expanding your seasonal interest and support for native pollinators/wildlife.

Full-day conference includes morning coffee/continental breakfast, three presentations, lunch, panel discussion and an optional tour after the conference.
Seating is limited. Registration required.
Registration fee is $75.00 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.
 

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

 

CONFERENCE SESSIONS

Edgy Ecology for the Formal Forest Fringe—
Lea Johnson, Ph.D., Director of Conservation, The Native Plant Trust

This session will explore ecological concepts helpful to plant selection and design in transition areas between managed and natural landscapes. We will consider edge effects, patch size, light dynamics, the ecological value of shrubs, and bird dispersal, as well as touching on some relevant work from research in landscape architecture and design ideas from woodland gardens.

 

Designing the Edge—
Kate Cholakis, Professor of Landscape Planning & Design, The Conway School of Landscape Design

Edges typically describe boundaries where a manicured landscape meets an unmanaged or less intensively managed one. This presentation examines the opportunities and challenges associated with the “urban ecotone” edge condition (where human land management meets more self-organizing natural ecosystems). We’ll explore a process for rethinking this condition, design typologies, and how we might increase our comfort, personally and culturally, with a more dynamic alternative.

 

Shrubs for the Forest Edge—
Bryan Connolly, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biology, Eastern Connecticut State University

This presentation will offer a palette of native shrub and multi-stemmed woody plant species that can be used in southern New England woodland gardens. For each species, we will explore their notable horticultural attributes (foliage, flowers, etc.), preferred growing conditions, ecological associations and available cultivars.