In January of last year, I wrote a series of blog entries on “Snow-tober: No Tree Left Behind,” followed by a blog series on “Winter Injury.” These blogs chronicled the devastating October snow storm and the erratic weather that we experienced during the later months of 2011. My discussion at the time focused on the extensive damage that The New York Botanical Garden endured, giving homeowners tips on how to assess structural damage on trees and combat winter burn on evergreens.
Since then, Super Storm Sandy has drawn our attention away from the Garden and focused it on coastal areas. Over the past few weeks I have been talking to a number of professionals working in the tri-state area, detailing their personal experiences with the mega storm. This has included experts on soils and trees, garden writers, nurserymen that sell halophytic plants (salt-tolerant plants), and restoration landscape designers.
The energy from this group–individuals who were out on the front line of restoration and remediation–and the enormity of the damage from this storm are mind-boggling. My hope is that these painful lessons will help teach us how to work with and respect nature–particularly when it comes to safeguarding our coastline.
Travis Beck humbly recalls his first gratifying experience as a landscape designer, a xeriscape project he planted with his own company in Colorado. “It was a small border,” he says, “but we finished on time, on budget, and it grew in very nicely.”
Years later, walking through the multi-tiered landscape of the Native Plant Garden, his ego still keeps to a small space–though his undertakings seldom do. The words Beck uses to describe his work are efficient and to-the-point, even as our tour group skirts the massive water feature he’s helped realize at the center of this latest NYBG revision. But his pragmatism has a purpose in this near fairytale landscape, just as it does in his recently published book: Principles of Ecological Landscape Design.
Not one to settle for the “green” aphorisms being passed along in today’s design industry, Beck’s book captures his approach to environmentally sound landscapes with practical examinations of the before, after, and in between of each project. Thoroughness is key and few aspects are left to chance. More than a simple source of inspiration, Principles of Ecological Landscape Design is a compendium designed to address every consideration for the professional or student designer. Plant selection, competition and coexistence, wildlife interaction, biodiversity, and stability are only a sampling of the many topics tackled.
