Growing Grit: Designing Beautiful, Biodiverse and Resilient Gravel Gardens

A grant from the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation a few years ago allowed Ben to begin exploring different approaches for creating resilient perennial plantings in urban public spaces. The Growing Grit project let him undertake real-world experiments using the novel European approaches to sustainable urban plantings.  Techniques such as growing plants in deep mineral mulches or in artificial substrates both reduce soil fertility, which accommodates much more diverse plant communities, and reduces the potential for weed invasion. Either way, the result is a designed planting that is simple to manage over the long term by maintenance crews who may not have advanced horticultural training. Imagine, too, the benefits for busy homeowners! If you struggle with soil fertility or inner-city soil contamination issues, or don’t have time to maintain constant curb appeal in your front yard, perhaps this style of planting could be a solution?

Growing up in Prince Edward County in rural Ontario, Ben spent much of his childhood playing in farm fields, fencerows, and forests. His fascination with these environments inevitably led him to study landscape architecture at the University of Guelph. His passion for exploring the culturally and ecologically enriching capacity of landscape architecture found a particular niche in landscape design based on richly layered, naturalistic plantings. Ben aims to create landscapes that, while obviously designed, have the same character, atmosphere, and dynamism of the wild places of his childhood. Ben’s landscaping company, Wild By Design, is dedicated to sharing this style of naturalistic planting.

This will be a hybrid meeting with both in person and on-line options available.

In-person:

St. Mark’s Church Hall, 1606 Fisher Ave, Ottawa
**Attendees must wear masks. Before attending in person, please screen yourself for Covid symptoms using this questionnaire. If you have any symptoms, stay home and use the on-line option instead.
Unfortunately, snacks and beverages will not be served at this meeting, though we hope to be able to resume with refreshments in the future.

On-line:

This is a free presentation and there is no registration required.  A recording will be available for members only for 14 days after the presentation.  Please consider supporting the future activities of the OHS though renewing your membership or joining for $15/yr, or though a donation.

How to view the presentation

To join the presentation, please click on this You Tube link to go to the OHS You Tube Channel.   To simply watch the presentation there is nothing else you need to do.  The presentation will also be recorded and available at this link afterwards. The easiest way to find the channel is using the link; if you are on You Tube and do a search please use Ottawa Horticultural Society (we aren’t the only ones that use OHS as an acronym!)

Starting the video

Once you are on the site, you must click on the rectangle of the video to start watching.   Until 7:30 you will see a screen that says the presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m., so please be patient.

If you think you may want to ask a question

There will be a Q &A session at the end of the presentation when your questions submitted will be put to the speaker by the moderator.  You can put your question in the live chat panel on the YouTube page while the presentation is running. To make a comment, you need to be registered and have a personal Youtube channel. Steps to do this are described below.

How to create a personal channel  

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1646861?hl=en

 Follow these instructions to create a channel that only you can manage using your Google Account. 

1. Sign in to YouTube from a Google account on a computer or using the mobile site.
2. Try any action that requires a channel, such as uploading a video, posting a comment, or creating a playlist.
3. If you don’t yet have a channel, you’ll see a prompt to create a channel.
4. Check the details (with your Google Account name and photo) and confirm to create your new channel.