Ask ten folks why they grow plants and you’re likely to get a variety of answers. The most common reasons are often aesthetic in nature–we like the look of a garden; it gives us a place to relax or play or drink wine with friends. However, simple beauty is not always enough, and in the modern era complicated issues such as sustainability and food stability are becoming more commonplace. Which plants will have the greatest ecological impacts? Which edibles are resistant to diseases and pests? What if you could have it all? A beautiful, edible landscape that also supports the local ecosystem.

Join Dan Jaffe Wilder, author and photographer of Native Plants for New England Gardens and Ecological Horticulturist at Norcross Wildlife Foundation, to learn how low-maintenance native plants can feed us and wildlife together.

Cost: $20

Please click here to register for this class

About Dan Jaffe Wilder, Director of Applied Ecology, Norcross Wildlife Foundation

Photographer and author Dan Jaffe Wilder has over fifteen years’ experience with ecological horticulture. He is a propagator of native species, the photographer and author of Native Plants for New England Gardens and a lecturer on numerous topics including wildlife habitat, sustainable landscape practices, foraging and cultivation of edible species, low-maintenance horticulture and others. He has developed a native plant horticultural database (https://plantfinder.nativeplanttrust.org/Plant-Search) and has years of nursery management experience.

Dan earned a degree in botany from the University of Maine, Orono, and an advanced certificate in Native Plant Horticulture and Design from Native Plant Trust (formally New England Wild Flower Society). He is the Director of Applied Ecology for the Norcross Wildlife Foundation and is currently building his own home-scale homestead, growing and foraging numerous edible species, preserving and cooking whenever possible, and raising small animals.