Gardening for Good Show Outline for September 4

Show outline for September 4:

Kathy Connolly is a landscape designer who specializes in naturalized designs, low-impact techniques, and native plants for homeowners, municipalities, and other organizations. She has a master's degree in landscape planning and design from the Conway School, and is an Organic Land Care professional through CTNOFA. Kathy is a familiar face in local conservation efforts in my town where she readily steps in to volunteer her time and expertise. You may also have read Kathy's articles that appear regularly in local shoreline papers, or been to one of her talks. One of my favorites projects is the downtown Westbrook native planting corner. Check out her website: SpeakingofLandscapes.com. 

 Today we're going to hear from Kathy about how to reduce your lawn in favor of creating a meadow. Where we know that lawns need a whole lot of attention throughout the growing season and can be one of the worst offenders of excess nitrogen runoff from fertilizers to our waterways and ultimately LIS, where it fuels hypoxia, meadows are an alternative. 

 But it's not as simple as just letting your lawn go. Kathy's going to give us some guidelines and answer some of the common questions she gets from people who love the idea but don't know where to start.

Here are some additional resources and event information:

Meadows from Lawns with guest Kathy Connolly http://www.speakingoflandscapes.com

Some Resources from the Program: •

[Book] Lawns into Meadows, Owen Wormser https://www.chelseagreen.com/writer/owen-wormser/ •

[Podcast] with Margaret Roach, A Way to Garden: https://awaytogarden.com/turninglawns-into-meadows-with-owen-wormser/

Sources for Native Plants (and information) • Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation https://www.xerces.org/pollinatorresource-center/northeast

Businesses: Balleks Garden Center East Haddam ...Native Plant Nursery Fairfield, CT • Earth Tones Native Plant Nursery Woodbury, CT • Helia Native Nursery  Western MA • Native Plant Trust (formerly New England Wildflower Society) Framingham, MA ...Plant-Search  Whately, MA

Upcoming Events • Aspetuck Land Trust native plant sale Easton (pick up) Orders in by Oct 17, 2020 • Realistic Solutions to Managing Invasive Plants, CIPWG Virtual Symposium, October 7