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Webinar Description:
This seminar will show participants how to successfully develop dense intermingled native plant combinations suitable for urban and metropolitan areas. The principles covered for designing these polycultures of native plants are applicable to all areas of the United States by using plants that the participants are already familiar with. Principles presented include aesthetic principles such as unity and variety in the main plant matrix—think a polyculture groundcover. Accents and transparent “scatter plants” will also be explained. The important consideration of the evolution of the polycultures as they mature will be addressed with Ruderal, Increaser and Stress Tolerator (RIS) theory. Examples of installed polycultures designed by the presenter will be shown along with images showing the development of the intermingled combinations over a period of years. The presentation will “demystify”designing with native polycultures and demonstrate that they are practical way forward towards sustainable urban ecologies.
Learning Objectives:
1. Learn the advantages of using native plants in carefully controlled intermingled combinations called Native Polycultures.
2. Learn techniques for designing successful polycultures using Matrix Plants, Accents, transparent emergent plants, and carefully controlled edges.
3. Learn how ruderals, increasers, and stress tolerators help set the developmental trajectory of plant polycultures.
David Hopman
Since accepting the position as a professor at the Graduate Program in Landscape Architecture at The University of Texas at Arlington in 2004, David Hopman, ASLA, PLA has energetically pursued a faculty role bridging practice and research. Professor Hopman is an advocate for using aesthetically qualified native polycultures of plants in planting design. His ideas on the topic can be found in ‘The Field’ posts for the planting design PPN on the ASLA website.
Professor Hopman is the author of an upcoming book on Creative Regional Design and Critical Regionalism for a New Age. The courses he teaches reflect his research interests in regionalism, plant materials and ecology, ecologically performative landscapes and landscape aesthetics. Hopman designed and implemented the first extensive green roof in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 2008 above the Life Sciences Building at UT-Arlington. He was in charge of the Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES) certification for The Green at College Park on the UT-Arlington Campus; one of the first three projects worldwide to receive certification in February of 2012. Landscape architecture practice experience as a registered landscape architect includes Kings Creek Landscaping, Huitt-Zollars, Inc., RTKL, Mesa Design Group, Inc., and a current independent practice. Recent projects include green roof design for Forest Park Medical Center (with David C. Baldwin, Inc.), The Plano Environmental Education Center landscape (with David Rietzsch and Associates), and consultation on the planting design for the Bush Presidential Library in Dallas (with Michael Van Valkenburgh and Associates). He has also designed and implemented a variety of native plant polycultures in the DFW area since 2014.
