The first class in this session is happening in person at Berkshire Botanical Garden in the Education Center. All subsequent classes will be held online. Learn how to design unique landscapes and garden spaces that strengthen the health of the environment immediately around you. Most yards are biological deserts as well as an ecological burden due to too much lawn coupled with non-native species. However, our yards can be readily transformed into beneficial habitats that sink carbon and reduce pollution while also providing beauty and a stronger connection to the natural world, all right outside your own door. Using strategies based on the observation and emulation of naturally existing plant communities, landscape designer Owen Wormser offers key techniques for creating enjoyable, low-maintenance garden spaces. Discover important functional and aesthetic qualities of the native plants that are the building blocks for creating easy-to-care-for, sustainable landscapes. Owen will also discuss how to design and prepare landscapes so that those plants can work together for maximum effect. In this interactive format, participants will be asked to apply what they’ve learned into a design and plant list that can be applied to an actual landscape. They will be asked to  share this and their process in the form of photographs, plans, and sketches. These  landscapes will be used as examples for ongoing discussion throughout the course. 

Owen Wormser is a native of rural Maine. Since 1998, he has built hundreds of regenerative landscapes in Western Massachusetts, influenced by his study of horticulture, permaculture, organic agriculture and ecology. In 2010, he started Abound Design, which provides design and installation services with a focus on creating sustainability, regeneration and beauty. Six years later, he co-founded Local Harmony, a nonprofit that promotes local regenerative projects and has overseen the planting of many thousands of native perennials. His first book, Lawns Into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape, was released in July, 2020.