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Expert Digs Into 'The Living Landscape' At Darien Library

DARIEN, Conn. -- Rick Darke, an award-winning landscape design consultant, author, lecturer and photographer, will lecture on "The Living Landscape" at the Darien Library on Wednesday, Jan. 14, at 7 p.m.

Rick Darke, award-winning horticulturist, landscape designer, photographer and author will speak on The Living Landscape on January 14 at 7 p.m. at the Darien Library.

Rick Darke, award-winning horticulturist, landscape designer, photographer and author will speak on The Living Landscape on January 14 at 7 p.m. at the Darien Library.

Photo Credit: Contributed
The talk will focus on using biodiversity in home garden and community landscapes.

The talk will focus on using biodiversity in home garden and community landscapes.

Photo Credit: Contributed
The talk will be an understanding of living layers in nature and relational biodiversity can be put to practical use in making and maintaining both home gardens and community landscapes.

The talk will be an understanding of living layers in nature and relational biodiversity can be put to practical use in making and maintaining both home gardens and community landscapes.

Photo Credit: Contributed
Butterflies on a flower in a community landscape.

Butterflies on a flower in a community landscape.

Photo Credit: Contributed
A landscape.

A landscape.

Photo Credit: Contributed

The talk is co-sponsored by Tree Conservancy of Darien, Darien Land Trust, Darien Nature Center, Darien Library and Friends of Selleck’s Woods. It is free and will focus on using biodiversity in home garden and community landscapes.

Darke blends art, ecology and cultural geography in his work and is dedicated to the design and stewardship of livable landscapes. In his talk, he will discuss how an understanding of living layers in nature and relational biodiversity can be put to practical use in making and maintaining both home gardens and community landscapes.

He will explain the role plants within the living layers play in the larger environment, such as providing berries for birds, food for bugs, or a place for bees to pollinate.

Strategies for employing “organic architecture” in creating beautiful, conserving, highly functional layers will be presented in detail. Darke, an accomplished horticulturist based in Pennsylvania, was inspired early on in his career in Fairfield County.

As an undergraduate engineering student, Darke attended a course on summer flora at UConn-Stamford campus and the Bartlett Arboretum. He learned to identify wild plants in local Connecticut woods and fields and was moved to return to the University of Delaware as a botany major.

Darke has also enjoyed nearly two decades of independent design work and publication. His most recent book, "The Living Landscape: Designing for Beauty and Biodiversity in the Home Garden," co-authored with Doug Tallamy, is a definitive guide to designing a beautiful, biodiverse home garden.

The book includes design strategies to implement in a home garden and helpful charts with plant suggestions, including natives and nonnatives.

The Darien library is located at 1441 Post Road, Darien.

For more information, email info@treeconservancyofdarien.org.

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