Location: Room 201
Sessions in the Landscape Ecosystems track focus on sustainable landscape management. Our 2025 selections primarily address insect biodiversity.
9:30-10:30 AM
A Green Tapestry: Weaving Nature into Urban Infrastructure
Taft Marsh, Human Nature, Associate
This presentation highlights innovative green infrastructure projects in Greater Cincinnati, focusing on stormwater management solutions at SD1’s Public Service Park, I-75 Terraced Reforestation, Lick Run Greenway, and Washington Park. These projects showcase landscape strategies that reduce combined sewer overflows and enhance community spaces, serving as educational models for sustainable water resource management.
Professional Credits:
- ISA: Certified Arborist, Municipal Specialist, BCMA Management
- LACES-HSW
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Testing the Limits of Soil Testing
Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott, Urban Horticulture Extension Specialist and Professor, Department of Horticulture, Washington State University (Retired)
This presentation discusses specifics of soil testing, including proper management practices and components to be aware of when testing. Increasingly, the importance of soil testing before prescribing use of fertilizers is recognized, but all soil tests are not created equally; agricultural soil metrics are not appropriate for use in landscapes. Learning how to interpret soil test by ground-truthing with site conditions allows arborists and landscape managers to understand how rhizospheres are currently functioning and what, if anything, should be added.
Professional Credits:
- ISA: Certified Arborist, Municipal Specialist, BCMA Science
1:30-2:30 PM
The Middle Ground: A Feasible Approach to Environmentally-Friendly Urban & Suburban Landscapes and Gardens
Scott Beuerlein, Manager of Botanical Outreach, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
All the trends are focusing on new methods of creating environmentally stronger landscapes, but is the public ready for how they look? Is there the infrastructure and the uniquely trained labor force to make and maintain them? This talk looks into merging the affordability, practicality, and popularity of more traditional landscape approaches with the goals of newer design concepts to achieve more high functioning landscapes that are badly needed.
Professional Credits:
- ISA: Certified Arborist, Municipal Specialist, BCMA Management
- LACES-HSW
3:00-4:00 PM
How to Encourage Your Clients to Plant Native Plants
Jennifer Smith, Wimberg Landscaping, Horticulturist
Create gardens that are thoughtful and intentional in design. Many homeowners are not ready to ‘let it go’ and have a wild intermingled garden. We crave order. If we want to make inroads into adding more beneficial plants we need to: create designs that are appealing to the client, be experts, and inspire with optimism, not fear. How do we talk about balance in designing the new landscape?
Professional Credits:
- LACES-HSW
4:10-5:10 PM
No Presentation