Join us where science meets practice

This home gardener-oriented series will examine ecology-based landscape practice through the eyes of one of its most highly respected and influential practitioners. Our expansive format will allow Landscape Designer Larry Weaner to provide an intensive guide for creating wildlife inclusive, ecologically productive, and highly manageable residential landscapes. Throughout the program Larry will interweave garden aesthetics with garden ecology, demonstrating how home environments can be both ecologically productive and experientially rich.

Newly offered is the option for participants to sign up for The Masterclass Site Bundle: a site visit and follow-up call with Larry.

Three 75-90-minute recordings
Two 1-hour live Q&A sessions

Learn more and register

To support native birds and pollinators you need native plants. For those plants to thrive, you need to know how to plant, arrange, and manage them. And to optimize the wildlife benefits, those plants must provide habitat throughout the year. In this presentation, entomologist & wildlife ecologist Doug Tallamy and landscape designer Larry Weaner will illustrate an all too rare, integrated approach to habitat creation on residential properties. In an alternating series of presentations, they will connect plants, wildlife, and their specific seasonal needs to illustrate the dynamic landscapes that this integrated approach can provide. They will conclude by comparing notes on their personal experience, interacting with plants and wildlife on their respective home landscapes.  

Duration: 2 hrs

Held Live: December 3, 2025

Fee: $32

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In this presentation Kristine will illustrate the results of her multi-year native lawn experiments at Cornell Botanic Gardens. She will discuss the species selection criterion, planting protocols, and management procedures that were employed. She will also discuss the native plant/insect/animal interactions that occurred during these trials, as well as the experimental lawn's ability to sustain itself over time with minimal additional inputs. Particularly when associated with other native plantings, these lawns can provide a key component for the maintenance reduction, habitat creation, and visual delights that so many of today’s property owners desire.

Duration: 1.25 hrs

Held Live: April 16, 2024

Fee: $32

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Selecting and arranging plants is central to - if not the heart of - fine garden design. Plant community-based design is no different; it simply uses natural vegetative models as its primary template. In this presentation, Larry will illustrate how to associate plants with their preferred environment, create plant compositions that function as integrated communities, and accommodate compositional change over time. But the word garden is not lost in this “wild” shuffle. He will conclude by revisiting fine garden design to show how an ecology-based plant palette can express, and even enhance, many different landscape styles.   

Duration: 1 hr. 30 min.

Held Live: Oct. 20, 2023

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

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In nature, plants spend millenia evolving strategies to more efficiently procreate. In the garden, we arrest that procreation by weeding virtually every individual that we didn’t plant. Over the last 40 years Larry Weaner has learned to plan for and “edit” spontaneous vegetation within his designed landscapes. Much of these landscapes’ ecological value, reduced management requirements, and experiential dynamism have resulted from this approach, a skill that was largely honed on large properties. Here however, Larry will refocus on the small residential landscape, exploring the practical, ecological, and experiential benefits that loosening the vegetative reigns can provide…even where space is tight and neighbors are close.

Duration: 1 hr. 30 min.

Held Live: Oct. 31, 2023

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

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Experiencing wild nature needn’t be limited to the remotest regions of the world.  It can occur in even the smallest backyard garden.  Learn how noted landscape designer Larry Weaner interacts with and responds to ecological processes to create an ever-evolving wild yet still ornamental garden in his small property outside Philadelphia.  Learn how this brains-over-brawn approach goes beyond simple editing of what occurs naturally and incorporates natural processes and plants’ reproductive abilities to achieve common aesthetic and functional goals.  And perhaps most importantly, discover how loosening the reins can bring a newfound mystery and discovery to even the smallest garden.

Duration: 1 hr. 40 min.

Held Live: April 21, 2023

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

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An old horticultural adage, “You don’t really know a plant until you’ve killed it,” suggests that gardeners can learn as much from their mistakes as their successes. In 1982, when Larry founded his landscape design-build firm, little practical guidance was available for translating landscape ecology into designed environments. Consequently, the need to experiment was instrumental in developing some of the protocols that guide his practice today. But as is the way with experiments, not all yielded the expected result. In this session Larry will show how these wayward experiments led to more effective protocols. His presentation will help attendees to skip over the “experimental” and proceed directly to the “proven.” He will also illustrate how to insert small experiments into landscape projects, allowing the learning process to continue indefinitely.

Duration: 1 hr. 40 min.

Held Live: July, 19, 2022

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

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Wildflower meadows were introduced in the 1960’s along with tie dye tee shirts and kaleidoscopic acid trips. But like those acid trips, the colors didn’t last. Alternatively, by planting site-adapted and highly competitive native perennials, managed according to the ecological processes that govern native meadow vegetation in the wild, long-lived vibrant meadows can be consistently achieved. In this presentation plant selection criteria, planting procedures, and management techniques will be illustrated through a series of residential case studies, including some over two decades old.

Duration: 1 hr. 40 min.

Held Live: Feb. 15, 2022

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

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Using native plants requires more than simply expanding the conventional design palette. Based on observation of how native plants develop in nature, new design, implementation, and management techniques emerge, many of which are diametrically opposed to traditional horticultural practice. This presentation examines how alternative approaches on everything from selecting, arranging, and spacing plants to the simple act of weeding can yield more easily maintained landscapes that express the beauty and ecological richness of our native landscapes.

Duration: 1 hr. 40 min.

Held Live: June 9, 2020

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

>>Register here

One picture can tell a thousand lies. Behind many a stunning garden image lies countless hours of weeding, fussing, and re-planting. This presentation will illustrate how a “brains over brawn” gardening approach - one that embraces natural ecological processes of vegetative change - can result in landscapes that are easier to maintain, leaving more time to simply enjoy.

Duration: 1 hr. 25 min.

Held Live: June 23, 2020

Fee: $38 (or register for Larry Weaner On-Demand Variety Bundle of 7 sessions for $225)

>>Register here

• Artful Plant Community Design: Selection-Arrangement-Stewardship

• Wild Residential: Accommodating Spontaneous Vegetation

• Living in the Wild: My House

• Landscape Lessons Learned: The Educational Value of "Mistakes"

• Native Meadows: Let’s Get Real

• Breaking the Rules: Ecological Alternatives to Traditional Garden Design

• Dealing with Weeds, Deer, and Other Garden Hurdles