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Getting to Know Benjamin Vogt

Posted on 4/27/2021
by with Benjamin Vogt
Pottawattamie Conservation is excited to announce the next Speaker Series program this May 13th. This online program is held in partnership with the Council Bluffs Public Library & supported by a grant from Humanities Iowa, a state-based affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

This online program is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 13th. Benjamin Vogt will help us to "use Nature to create resilient and beautiful landscapes that bring the prairie home". This program will be virtual, please register to receive a zoom link. However, those in the Council Bluffs area can watch the zoom meeting in Meeting Room B at the Council Bluffs Public Library, located at 400 Willow Avenue in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Contact the library to reserve your seat at (712) 323-7553.

 

Click Here for More Information & to Register Online

 

Our May speaker is Benjamin Vogt, owner of Monarch Gardens LLC, a prairie-inspired design firm based in Lincoln. He speaks nationally on garden design and environmental ethics and for over 5 years wrote an award-winning native plant column at Houzz which garnered over 3 million readers. Benjamin is the author of the books A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for An Uncertain Future and the forthcoming Prairie Up: An Introduction to Nature-Based Garden Design (2022). Get to know our May speaker & get ready to meet him on May 13th!

We asked Benjamin the questions below to try to get to know him and his life’s passion a little better.

 

What advice would you give to someone looking to enter the field of native landscaping?

 

Research the plants well. Don't trust plant tags. Plant densely and thickly (12" apart or less for herbaceous perennials no matter what any tag says).

 

What is your favorite part of your work?

 

When client send pics a year or three later of wildlife they see and plant combinations they love. I want to make a difference for creatures (habitat) as well as people (beauty).

 

What is one piece of knowledge you would like everyone you interact with to know?

 

Native plants are not drought tolerant or low maintenance. They can be more resilient and less maintenance if they're properly sited in a landscape and with other plants.

 

What inspired you to enter into this field?

 

Gardening with my mother and reading about climate disruption / mass extinction. Once I started my own garden and saw what was happening, what ecosystem was developed, I read and read and read to learn about everything I was seeing, which led to designing healthier spaces.

 

What is the greatest lesson you have learned from your work?

 

Gardens evolve and change, and that's good. We need to learn to let the plants teach us what they want and where they want to be. Gardens are not static, and we shouldn't be either. 

 

Join Benjamin for Fundamentals of Garden Layers: Using Nature to Create Resilient and Beautiful Landscapes That Bring the Prairie Home coming up on May 13th! Click Here to Register Online for this Free Program Today!

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