One of the native plant organizations here in Massachusetts is Grow Native Massachusetts. I can’t remember offhand if I’ve mentioned them before or not. They offer public lectures on various topics relating to native plants and gardening.
As it’s been getting closer to spring, I’ve been trying to brush up on native plantings before I finally sit down and finish drafting out what should be our final garden plan for this year. When I visited the Grow Native Massachusetts site today, I realized I had totally forgotten about their public lecture series.
They’re being held online with Zoom. The first one I signed up for is “Managing an Urban Landscape for Biodiversity” from their “Evenings with Experts” series. It will be held on March 31, from 7:00 – 8:30pm (EDT). I likely will sign up for the others, but I need to double check against my calendar first.
This is the description in case anyone reading this might want to attend:
“Habitat stewardship is a vital component of creating enduring and ecologically healthy landscapes, particularly in dense urban settings. But traditional landscaping practices rarely take biodiversity into consideration, and there is a dearth of effective guidelines to inform this goal. For horticulturist Rebecca McMackin and her team that cares for the native woodlands, wetlands, and meadows at Brooklyn Bridge Park, cultivating habitat is central to their work. Join us to learn how they are using ecological insight and experimentation to develop new management strategies— and why careful observation and documentation of the insects, birds, and other wildlife in the park has been so crucial to their success.
Rebecca McMackin is the Director of Horticulture for Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she manages 85 acres of diverse parkland with an eye towards habitat creation for birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. She is also the Vice-President of the Metro Hort Group in the New York tri-state region.”
You can register on their Evenings With Experts page.
