Ecological Landscape Alliance | Advocating for Responsible Stewardship

Featured Events

Eco-tour: Native Plant Center

Wed, July 27 @ 10:00 am EDT - 12:00 pm EDT

Join this professionally guided tour of The Native Plant Center to learn more about native plants and pollinator support.

Sat, August 20 @ 10:00 am EDT - 12:00 pm EDT

We invite you join us on this guided Eco-tour to experience the beauty, diversity and sustainability of our native flora for yourself.

Wed, August 24 @ 2:00 pm EDT - 3:00 pm EDT

Now that we understand why native plant gardens are so important for creating habitat and supporting pollinators, it’s time to kick things up a notch! Learn some design tips and tricks for a native plant garden that is not only ecologically sustainable, but beautiful also.

Fri, September 9 @ 10:00 am EDT - 12:00 pm EDT

ELA Eco-tour to meadows that display the rich color palettes that can be achieved using native plants. The meadows are all designed with four season interest - a feature that invites frequent visits to experience the changing views.

Eco-tour – Private Garden in Rye, NY

Sat, September 17 @ 4:00 pm EDT - 6:00 pm EDT

These gardens represent a complete landscape renovation designed and built by Jay Archer. Explore the ever-evolving project!

Thu, October 27 @ 8:30 am EDT - 4:30 pm EDT

Save the date as the Summit goes Hybrid! Event details will be available soon.

Event calendar

Featured Articles

Ecological Amenity or Weedy Pit?

By Kate Cholakis and Eliza Pennypacker

Rain gardens, a type of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), can provide habitat while reducing the amount of polluted stormwater runoff leaving a property. Why might a rain garden in the front yard be problematic? Acknowledging key differences between rain gardens and the residential “landscape norm” is key to changing perceptions.

By Uli Lorimer

Do you want a garden that makes a real difference? Choose plants native to our Northeast region. The rewards will benefit you, your yard, and the environment—from reducing maintenance tasks to attracting earth-friendly pollinators such as native birds, butterflies, and bees. We must envision a future in which wild creatures of all shapes and sizes are afforded space in our built environment.

By Laura J. Martin

Native wildflower gardening is more popular than ever. But a century ago, this was not the case. Wildflowers persist in the numbers they do today because of the activism and research of a group of women ecologists who in 1901 defied gender norms and founded the discipline of ecological restoration.

By Leslie Duthie

This gardener decided to kill part of her lawn two years ago when we were encouraged to stay home due to the pandemic. Now in its third spring, follow the journey from surprises to successes to lessons learned. The barren lawn has been replaced with a shade and sun meadow with straightforward, easy steps that even a novice garden can copy.

By Norm Helie

Many trees die during the first season at the new site. Watering transplanted trees is not the same as watering crops or a perennial garden. Small annual and perennial plant root systems require less oxygen than the delicate fine root systems of the tree.

Gleanings from Headline News – June 2022

We’ve scanned the media – in print and online – for items of interest to ELA’s ecologically focused audience:

Living Tree Bridges
The Dark Side of Light Pollution
Best Mulching Practices
How to Manage Weeds on Your Farm
Efforts to Save North America’s Most Endangered Bird Species Are Succeeding
A Difficult Site Becomes a Lovely Garden
Amazon vs. Rusty Patch Bumblebee
USDA Kills Thousands of Native Species
Piet Oudolf Designs New Garden
Olmstead’s 200th Birthday
Iconic Wildflower in Peril
Invasive Toxic Hammerhead Worm Found in Rhode Island
Native Garden Tours MetroWest Boston

ELA News – June 2022

Learn about upcoming programs and find out what’s happening within the organization:

Message from the Board of Directors
Farewell with a Note of Appreciation

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Conferences

ELA’s one- and two-day regional conferences offer cutting-edge knowledge, useful information, CEU’s, and invaluable opportunities for engagement with fellow professionals. Conference sponsors present their ecologically-focused products and services while supporting ecological education.

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Webinars

A Focus on Sustainability – This Fall/Winter series is geared to landscape professionals and anyone who stewards the land. Webinars are taught by nationwide experts on ecological landscape topics.
Wednesday Walks in the Garden – This free Summer/Spring webinar series was begun in 2020 and offers a wide range of topics to engage and educate garden enthusiasts on ecological principles.

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Classes, Eco-Tours & Workshops

ELA programming offers classes, tours, and hands-on workshops to expand your skills from design and soil management to incorporating edibles and managing rainwater.

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Thank you everyone for the energy you put into ELA. These programs shine from your involvement, expertise, and love of nature. I’m excited for what the next year will bring.

Mark H.

Thanks so much for organizing a great informative Mid-Atlantic conference. The speakers were all excellent and very enlightening, I came away with lots of new knowledge. I also enjoyed meeting and networking with lots of like minded professionals.

Mark E. MSE Landscape Associates, LLC

Laura and I were just talking about how much we get from all of the ELA events and webinars…. The good "vibes" abound at ELA events.

John K, Land Design Inc.

Thank you for a full day’s worth of insightful material! Thank you for organizing this great event every year.

Karen C.

Speakers were very good, but meeting landscapers at the talks & in the lobby was best.

Cathy B.

Thank you Penny for making this delightful series available to members of the GCFM. [A Walk in the Garden webinars] have been one of my favorite hours each week this springtime. The speakers have been top notch subject experts who have excellent teaching skills to boot. Their photo presentations have been beautiful and informative. All around an excellent series!

Linda N

Thank you for a lovely and informative conference at BBG this past December. [It was] very well run and a joy to attend.

I salute you on the excellent conference today at BBG! It's cheering and edifying for my staff and me to be among so many people, old friends and new, who value horticulture and ecology.

Thank you for offering...courses via webinar - it really helps to save the professional development budget & travel time from my job. I find these information sessions very interesting, inspiring and informative.

Thanks for providing the great professional society that I have been long searching for.... I am definitely a better, more informed practitioner for it.

I am really enjoying all the webinars that the Ecological Landscape Alliance is offering. Thank you so much for organizing them and making them available for FREE! I spread the news about them on my Constant Contact page for the NJ Native Plant Society.

Susan H.

Just want to say again how very much I appreciate the “Walk in the Garden” series. The quality of your programs is tops! A “Walk in the Garden” is so much more than a series of slideshows. It is a celebration of how all life is connected. It is great to have this positive reminder amidst the scarier reminders!

K.R. Watkins

Being an ELA member has allowed me ready access to resources that inspire and inform our new coastal landscapes initiative. I'm very thankful they exist!

Gloria P, North Carolina Sea Grant, North Carolina State University

I love the new website. It’s clean and clear and the articles you highlight have great, inspiring content.

Meg H Plant Me a Rainbow

THANKS FOR THIS WEBINAR EVENT -- and to the author for the links to the Rodale Institute. To-the-point, compact (but not compacted!), memorable and motivating!

Joeth B.

I thoroughly enjoy being a member of ELA. In fact, I get the most out of my membership from your organization than from any other professional organization I belong to. Your educational opportunities are fantastic, I have enjoyed every webinar I've ever attended, and your newsletter is always informative and helps me do my work. Thank you!

Nancy H. Little Eden Gardens

[R&R] was such an informative and interesting conference. Thanks to you all at ELA for hosting such an undertaking. I'm looking forward to using more of ELA as a resource going forward.

I want to thank you and ELA for having such a wonderful speaker [Heather Holm] talk about our native bees and plant partners. It was fantastic. Great photos.

Virginia K.

I met and made new friends with great topics to discuss.

Timothy M.

The whole day on soils was particularly educational. I really liked the on-topic, varied discussions.

Erica B.

Fantastic! So many delicious offerings so well organized, so much energy, so many smiles! And just think of the abundance of skills, knowledge, deepened friendships, new connections, and inspired energy now out there, put to service, and passed on to still others! An astounding event! Hooray for everyone on the Conference Committee!

Cindy G, Landscape Designer

You do a wonderful job with your newsletters. Everything might as well be a MUST Do with the way you present the programs. We appreciate your dedication to doing a good job, and are most impressed with ELA.

Ginny S. Talbot Ecological Land Care

I really love ELA. Can't believe I only discovered y'all last year!

Laura B

Can I just say I have enjoyed all the lectures, conferences, classes and tours put on by ELA. You are doing a fabulous job. Thank you so much for all the work you put into this really incredible resource.

Georgia H

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