Live Events with Habitat Experts
Curious about how to transform your lawn into a vibrant garden filled with native plants? Or want to know why leaving the leaves in the fall benefits the birds? Attend our virtual live events, FREE and informative.
Unlawning Our Landscapes by Adding Native Plants with Benjamin Vogt
April 1 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT
What We’ll Discuss:
Delve into the history of lawns and their unforeseen consequences. We’ll spend most of the time learning how to convert lawn into habitat gardens. From plant selection to design, prep to management, this lecture runs the gamut on empowering people to make landscape changes.
About the Speaker:
Benjamin Vogt is owner of Prairie Up, formerly Monarch Gardens, offering garden design, online classes, workshops, webinars, and guidebooks. He is the author of A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future, as well as Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design. His forthcoming book, Unlawning America, will be released by Timber Press in 2026/27. Benjamin’s work has been featured in Dwell, Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Midwest Living, the New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Benjamin has an M.F.A. (The Ohio State University) and Ph.D. (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) in English and has taught over fifty college classes for which he’s received multiple awards.
Leaving our Fall Garden Resources with Doug Tallamy
September 9th at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT
What We’ll Discuss:
This live event will build on the Leaf It Pledge which is designed to advocate for leaving the leaves to benefit birds and local wildlife. Doug will discuss how fallen leaves provide vital habitat, food, and spring nesting materials — all benefits to birds and biodiversity. His wealth of knowledge will inspire you to look at fallen leaves with a new found respect.
About the Speaker:
Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 114 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 45 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, Nature’s Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award. In 2021, he cofounded Homegrown National Park (HomegrownNationalPark.org) with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writer’s Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, Ecoforesters, The Garden Club of America, The Herb Society, and The American Horticultural Association.
Invasive Plants & Our Gardens with Mhairi McFarlane
Dates coming soon!
What We’ll Discuss:
What are invasive species and what have they got to do with my garden anyway? Learn the basics of non-native and invasive plants, what problems they cause and what we can do about it. Learn some tips and tricks for identifying non-native plants throughout the seasons. See some examples of beautiful native plants we could grow instead.
About the Speaker:
Dr Mhairi McFarlane is an Extension Associate in the Centre for Engagement in Science and Nature at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. She has worked in practical, landscape-scale conservation planning, land protection and habitat restoration in Ontario, Canada for over 16 years. Her restoration work spanned many bird diversity hotspots, including protecting alvars in Canada’s “deep south” on Pelee Island in Lake Erie, wetland and grassland restoration at Long Point, and Boreal forest in northern Ontario. Prior to this, she spent three years in South Africa doing her PhD work on Cape sugarbirds. She is a proponent of participatory science, and has contributed to the Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas via several wilderness canoe trips in the Hudson Bay Lowlands. She enjoys sharing her natural history experiences from anywhere in the world via ebird and iNaturalist. She enjoys encouraging everyone to participate in conservation, whether it is at the scale of a native plant in a pot on your balcony, through to connecting large chunks of habitat to support continental-scale animal migrations.
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