spring webinars: ‘designing for visual & ecological vibrance’

AS I HAVE confessed before: I’ve always considered design to be the most challenging part of garden-making. Lately the task is even more complex, because we want our gardens to be not just vibrant visually, but also ecologically.

The most exciting, compelling gardens today are as legible and inviting to their human visitors as to all the beneficial organisms that depend on them to thrive.

How can we create a garden, or fine-tune our existing design, with both layers of appeal?

I hope you’ll join me this spring semester of the Virtual Garden Club’s ‘Garden 2.0’ series as we get an inside look at the thought process of three contemporary masters of the ecological horticulture realm whose work I admire—both for their aesthetic and ecological vision.

Let them help you (us!) develop our own design confidence as they share philosophical, artistic, scientific and practical advice.

Gardens aren’t one-size-fits-all, and each designer, likewise, has his or her own often quite distinctive approach—their way of seeing, and of working.

Dan Jaffe Wilder’s end goal is a beautiful but manageable, low-maintenance landscape, and he calls his method for getting there “design-less gardening.” Dan takes his inspiration not from the traditional principles in the pages of landscape architecture texts, but from nature itself, and will teach us to read its clues.
Leslie Needham shows us how to up the garden’s ecological vibrance while also adding more legibility (with tactics like by establishing key focal points, or creating thoughtfully placed paths and seating areas, for example). And great news, she reassures us: There’s no need to rip out everything; she’ll show us how to make a “graceful pivot” to an ecologically enhanced landscape.
Preston Montague seeks to create habitat-focused gardens. To empower us to do so, too, he distills the principles of conservation gardening and draws upon the knowledge bases of sustainable design and permaculture, too, offering us an expanded set of references to guide our decision-making process when building or refining our landscape.

There’s no better moment than spring—when we’re spending more time plant shopping and also out in the garden—to avail ourselves of new ideas, and strategies for bringing them to life. That’s what the Spring 2026 ‘Garden 2.0’ webinar series is all about.

Note: All Zoom session times are Eastern Daylight Time; all are also recorded for later viewing at your convenience, and remain available for three months after the final class.

Thursday April 23, 2026

1-2:30 PM EDT

Dan Jaffe Wilder:

Design-less Gardening: A Naturalistic Approach for a Low-Maintenance Landscape

DISREGARD traditional design rules and adopt a new approach to garden design. Look to nature for your inspiration. What clues can you take from your landscape to help your site to thrive? Learn to evaluate sunlight, moisture, soil and other factors to encourage a successful garden that does not require many inputs in the way of watering, fertilizing, extra coddling on your part. Create a low-maintenance garden that actively supports the environment and provides beauty for all—people and pollinators alike.

About Dan Jaffe Wilder

Dan Jaffe Wilder is the Ecological Horticulturist for Norcross Wildlife Foundation and its 8,000-acre sanctuary in Massachusetts, specializing in native plant ecology, plant propagation, wildlife habitat construction, and native edible landscapes. His professional experience has ranged from nurseries to botanical gardens to wildlife refuges. A prolific photographer and author, Dan’s book “Native Plants for New England Gardens” was released in 2018. He is also a board member of the Ecological Landscape Alliance.

Thursday May 21, 2026

1-2:30 PM EDT

Leslie Needham:

Making the Garden Pivot: From Traditional to Ecological

LEARN low-stress methods for transitioning from the formal garden styles of the past to a more natural landscape that attracts birds, butterflies, and other vibrant forms of biodiversity. Conditions are changing, and our gardens must evolve with them, Leslie Needham believes.

The good news, she says: you don’t have to choose between good design and a healthy ecosystem (you can have both). Nor do you need to rip out all your existing plantings and start from scratch. Think of the process as a natural form of evolution. And for goodness’ sake, keep finding the joy along the way: Why else are you gardening?

Leslie will share practical strategies that can guide your garden’s transition, such as determining the hierarchy of your site; establishing key focal points; creating thoughtfully placed paths and seating areas; and criteria for selecting native plantings to be incorporated into your landscape. These and other design techniques can bring legibility to your garden and help you to execute a more graceful pivot.

About Leslie Needham

Leslie Needham is a gardener, writer, lecturer, and landscape designer whose firm, Leslie Needham Design, based in Westchester County, N.Y., works with wide-ranging clients who value land stewardship and seek strong, creative design approaches that unlock the full potential of a landscape. She draws on long-standing collaborations with skilled contractors, architects, masons, artisans, and plantsmen to create sustainable, timeless landscapes that mature and evolve over the years. Leslie has taught at the New York Botanical Garden and delights in discovering the magic and historic beauty of land. Her work has been featured in “The New York Times,” “Gardenista,” “Martha Stewart Living,” and other publications. Most recently, her home landscape, River Hills, was selected for inclusion in the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Gardens.

Thursday June 25, 2026

1-2:30 PM EDT

Preston Montague:

Lessons from the Fireflies: Ecological Prompts for Conservation Gardeners

WHEN landscape architect and artist Preston Montague discovered that his North Carolina garden was the only one in his neighborhood with fireflies, he was perplexed. How did these insects find and settle in his sun-blasted, droughty, 1,000-square-foot urban gravel garden?

Preston began searching for answers among the many resources on ecological landscape design he had collected when starting his own design practice. Among those resources, several ecological planning principles revealed themselves as “aha” moments, though they required a little translation to make them garden-tactical.

Preston will share some of the most useful ones, and translate them for us—concepts like darkness as a natural resource, or design-process prompts such as a decision-making hierarchy for conservation gardeners, the kinds of insights that became critical components of his new design process creating diverse, resource-rich gardens that connect more robustly to the web of life.

About Preston Montague:

Preston Montague is a North Carolina-based landscape architect and artist working to strengthen relationships between people and the natural world. His environmental design studio, founded in 2019, deploys art, horticulture, and landscape architecture in the service of building places that have meaning and ecological depth.

After building the studio practice he’d always dreamed of, Preston paused mid-career to reflect on what he was actually making and what he wanted to create next. Digging deeper into landscape ecology and the ecosystem-service potential of landscapes has helped him re-center, and explore fresh approaches that he is delighted to share with gardeners and designers eager to be more intentional in their deployment of plants and in their service to the broader environment.

When not in studio, Preston enjoys teaching landscape architecture at North Carolina A&T State University and hiking the wilder places.