Friday, October 25 – 8:00 EDT-4:30 EDT – Wave Hill

Registration is now open through Eventbrite

Wave Hill
4900 Independence Ave.
Bronx, NY 10471

This will be a hybrid event with a virtual option for participation

This year’s Ecological Plant Conference at Wave Hill on Friday, October 25 will feature four incredible speakers, each with a unique perspective and stories to share about working with plants. The Ecological Plant Conference is always a deep dive into the world of plants in the built landscape and this year’s program is sure to inspire you to learn more about the plants around you.

CEU’s

This year’s Ecological Plant Conference is approved for the following CEU’s: 4 LA CES credits, 4 APLD credits, 2 MCA credits. Credits are available for both virtual and in-person attendees.

Program Schedule

8:00am – Registration and refreshments
8:45am – Welcome

9:00-10:00am Ethan Dropkin, Native Annuals: Overlooked, Underused, and Essential: Native annuals and short-lived plants are too often overlooked and/or mis-used in landscape design. This lecture aims to help attendees understand these plant’s lifecycles, their role in the landscape, how they can be used as an integral part of landscape establishment and design and provides examples of both species and precedent projects where they have been used.

10:30-11:30am Tama Matsuoka Wong, Into the Weeds: How to Garden like a Forager: Tama will make the case for changing our approach to “weeds” as per the title of her latest How to garden like a forager book “Into the Weeds.” She will talk about how weeds sit at the juncture of our future of food, the environment and health…and a new approach to meticulously ordered beds and battling the changing weather.

11:30-1:30pm Lunch and garden tours with Wave Hill Horticulture Staff

1:30-2:30pm Arden Pontasch, Solution Driven Plants that Stand the Test of Time: This plant-packed lecture will highlight both new and classic problem-solving perennials that have withstood the test of time within our trial gardens, and how to apply them within even the toughest of garden conditions. From plant trials to retail benches, join Arden for a peek into the fast-paced world of perennial plant evaluations, propagation, and how new selections are brought to market.

3:00-4:00pm Evan Abramson, Pollinate Now: Bioregional Strategy for Habitat Restoration in the Hudson River Estuary Watershed: The largest pollinator corridor in the United States, spanning 51 Hudson Valley communities across four watersheds, Pollinate Now is a roadmap for biodiversity and ecological resilience in New York State built by community and based on science. The product of a year-long collaboration between designers, planners, scientists, activists, educators and citizens, Pollinate Now aspires to make habitat creation easy, exciting and aesthetically pleasing — and inspire landowners to view their properties as integral parts of a network of ecosystems that stretches across the wider bioregion.

Speaker Biographies

Ethan Dropkin – Larry Weaner Landscape Associates
Educated in Landscape Architecture and Horticulture at Cornell University, Ethan has taken an inborn love of plants since childhood and followed that to a career in landscape design with a focus in native plants and landscapes at LWLA and lecturing on horticulture and plants at large. Ethan has a particular love of plants (and plant communities) that thrive in difficult conditions and how those plants and assemblages can be adapted to horticultural practice to solve some of our most difficult planting issues. When not designing or lecturing he is an avid contributor to citizen science projects like eBird and iNaturalist and is a loving father and husband.

Evan Abramson – Landscape Interactions
Evan Abramson grew up amongst the museums and parks of New York City, where early exposure to ancient art, cultures, animals and plants left lasting impressions upon his abilities to create and organize images, color, light and form. Drawing on his diverse experience as a regional planner, landscape designer, farmer, community organizer, filmmaker and photojournalist, Evan designs landscapes and corridors that build biodiversity and resilience to a changing climate at the ecosystems level. As Founder and Principal of Landscape Interactions, he works closely with project partners along every step of the process, from conception through design, implementation and maintenance. Under his leadership, Landscape Interactions has been responsible for designing over 350 acres of installed habitat across the Northeast. He holds a Master of Science in Ecological Design from the Conway School, Certificates in Permaculture Design and Biodynamic Gardening, and is the author of numerous publications, including Pollinate Now, Farming for Biodiversity and Lincoln Pollinator Action Plan.

Tama Matsuoka Wong – Meadows and More
Tama Matsuoka Wong is a forager, weed eater, wild farmer, and meadow doctor. She is the author of the backyard field guide and cookbook Foraged Flavor (Clarkson Potter June 2012) nominated for a James Beard award in 2013, followed by Scraps, Wilt & weeds with Chef Mads Refslund (winner of IACP award for Food Matters) and now Into the Weeds: How to Garden Like a Forager.

After graduating from Harvard Law School and serving more than 25 years as a financial services lawyer in Tokyo, New York and Hong Kong, she returned with her family to Hunterdon County New Jersey and rediscovered her passion for the natural world. In 2007 she was named Steward of the Year by the New Jersey Forest Service.

Arden Pontasch – North Creek Nurseries
Arden Pontasch is the Plant Trials Manager at North Creek Nurseries, a wholesale propagation nursery with a strong emphasis on Eastern US native plants and their cultivars. She represents the PLNA on the Invasive Species Council for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and sits on the Government Relations Committee for the Pennsylvania Landscape & Nursery Association. Arden holds a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies from the University of Toledo, Ohio, and has dedicated herself to the Green Industry (with experience in both private and public sectors) for almost 20 years. Above all, Arden is passionate about connecting people with nature, which has led her on a path of exploring plants, human culture, and their role in shaping the world around us.

Member pricing is available for current ELA members. To check your membership status and find your Subscription (Member) number, visit your member profile.

Registration for this event is through Eventbrite and includes entry to Wave Hill, breakfast, and lunch. Virtual registration is for virtual participation only and does not include Wave Hill entry or meals.

Are you interested in sponsoring the Ecological Plant Conference? Contact ELA Executive Director Mark Richardson, mark@ecolandscaping.org, to learn about sponsorship opportunities and benefits.

NOTE: Standard parking at Wave Hill is not available for symposium attendees. Limited handicap parking spaces are available for symposium attendees. There are many options for public transit, which can be found on Wave Hill’s website here: https://www.wavehill.org/visit/getting-here.

Shuttle service will run for attendees prior to registration and at the end of the day from both the Riverdale train station and the last stop on Subway #1.