Super-tough Natives with Ian Caton
To quote Ian fully:
“As a Landscape Designer and home gardener, I have often had ambitious plans for the creation of amazing diverse gardens with visions of Trilliums, Phlox, lady slippers and other plants wild and rare. Then reality set in with the first shovel of hard clay. Then extreme drought, pesky deer and other adversities took over. However, some plants tended to do extremely well even under the worst of conditions. I began to notice a pattern of where these plants tended to originate in the wild, and so I began to be able to predict how a plant would do based on the habitat it originated from. I then noticed how differently these plants behaved under cultivation than they did in the wild, becoming either more or less competitive. Eventually I learned how to combine my understanding of the habitat and competitiveness of plants in a way that works with difficult soils, harsh climates, and other pests.
This lecture is intended to provide the background to some of my understanding of how plants behave and the habitats they come from and how they can be utilized to truly create a low-maintenance landscape as well as highlighting a suite of plants that I have found to fit well into most any difficult situation. “
A graduate of Delaware Valley College with a BS in ornamental horticulture and environmental design, Ian brings his in-depth knowledge of native plants, natural communities, and their incorporation in the human environment to the design and installation of native landscapes for private residences and public spaces. From 2001 to 2013 he worked for Larry Weaner Landscape Associates in PA and currently serves as project consultant for the firm.
Ian has spoken at Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve, Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Irvine Native Plant Seminar, and New Directions in the American Landscape conferences as well as other events.