Environmentally friendly "demonstration gardens" are commonly placed in isolated locations on school campuses. In contrast, the Nature Trail plantings that wind through the Friends School of Baltimore exemplify the added benefits of a campus-wide approach. The project was initiated in 2005, and planted incrementally as a collaboration between the school and Guilford Garden Club. While habitat conservation and education were at the heart of the project from the beginning, the partners soon realized these gardens could also be used to slow and absorb surface water on the school’s sloping campus.

In this course, project founder Kay McConnell will describe the landscape's continuing development, and how each new garden heals a disturbance, solves a problem, or both.

This virtual session's registration and recording will be available for three months after the live event date.

Kay McConnell is an ecological garden design consultant based in Baltimore, MD, with a passion for native plants and education. Her work in both private and public gardens has spanned the Mid-Atlantic, New England, and as far south as Tennessee, and emphasizes the value of intimate understanding of and interaction with the land that supports our work and play. Kay was awarded the Garden Club of America's Elizabeth Abernathy Hull Award and Zone VI Civic Improvement Award for her contributions to the collaboration project between the Friends School of Baltimore and the Guilford Garden Club.