conference

2011 Conference:

ELA is seeking Speakers for the 2011 Conference! Call for Speaker Proposals

2010 Conference: On February 25, 2010, ELA presented our 16th Annual Conference & Eco-Marketplace: Expanding the Ecological Landscape: Maximize Biological Potential, Minimize Environmental Impact, and Love the Results! Click here for the answers to the Plant ID Quiz!

Members and non-members joined ELA to expand their vision of the managed landscape and to:

• Learn how to maximize biological potential while minimizing environmental impacts.
• Get the most current information from experienced professionals and educators.
• Explore new options in supplies and services.
• Improve your skills and your bottom line.

Dinner featured a keynote address by Toby Hemenway, author of Gaia’s Garden, a Guide to Home-scale Permaculture. Adjunct professor at Portland State University and Scholar in Residence at Pacific University, Hemenway shared his design approach based on ecological principles that create sustainable landscapes, homes, and workplaces. Complete list of speakers.

conference brochure

Pesticide and CEU Credits: Credits information.

Eco-Marketplace: This year the Eco-Marketplace was packed with “classic” alternative products – extreme cutting edge techniques and everything in between. Some of the many Eco-Marketplace displays included:

• Live local snakes and salamanders - see how they fit into a healthy ecosystem.
• Vernal pools that support salamander lifecycles. Find out how to utilize design elements, native plants, and soil amendments to help snakes do their job of insect and rodent control.
• Chickens (real chickens – they cluck!) see how they can be incorporated into all sorts of landscapes.
• Check out the worms that work the soil and then feed the chickens.
• Plants that have multiple uses - both beauty and food.
• Stormwater and other water management that are essential to percolation and water table integrity - discover treefilters as a solution to cleaning and percolating storm water.
• Rain storage cisterns - not your grandfather’s rain barrel!
• Biochar retort is the brand new technology designed to use refuse wood or other organic material to generate heat and capture energy while trapping much of the carbon in a usable by-product – biochar.
• Microbes, compost tea, dry inoculants and more: learn about how these perform in some of the best of the organic fertilizers.

List of Eco-Marketplace exhibitors.

Questions? Please email the ela office or call 617-436-5838.