Category Archives: Plants

Bog Wild

Guarded by isolated landscapes and rough ocean waters, Argentina’s remote peatlands are among the world’s most effective and fragile carbon sinks.

By Jimena Martignoni / Photography by Joel Reyero

Peatlands appear in the landscape as extensive, soft surfaces slightly undulated and dotted by small pools of water.

At the southern tip of South America, between the Strait of Magellan to the north and west and Beagle Channel to the south, the Tierra del Fuego archipelago may hold one of the keys to global carbon sequestration: nearly pristine peatlands. Continue reading Bog Wild

A Canopy Where it Counts

Cedar Rapids, Iowa, grabs the opportunity for more equity and biodiversity after a Derecho flattens more than half the urban trees.

By Kevan Klosterwill

On August 10, 2020, a massive storm ripped through Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and the surrounding area. The storm, called a derecho for the straightness of its 140-mile-per-hour winds (as compared with a twisting tornado), spent less than an hour over the city, but in the process devastated the city’s tree canopy. Continue reading A Canopy Where it Counts

Your Stuff Is Coming (Someday)

Supplies are short and prices are bonkers. What’s behind the issues in the supply chain, and when will they end?

By Bradford McKee

An Alpine crew installing granite pavers at a new park near Hudson Yards. Photo by Dylan Peck, Alpine Construction & Landscaping Corporation.

Don’t worry, it’s not just you. The supply chain chaos that has dogged the whole economy the past couple of years is hitting every point of the uniquely perishable process of building landscapes. Continue reading Your Stuff Is Coming (Someday)

A Wilder West

This article is also available in Spanish

Colwell-Shelor embraces “ugly-pretty” ecology on a Camelback Mountain estate.

By Brian Barth / Photography by Caitlin Atkinson

Stormwater runoff from the property collects in a steel basin before seeping into the lawn through a series of weeps. Photo by Marion Brenner, Affiliate ASLA.

Rare is the landscape architecture client who enjoys a view of decay out their window. Continue reading A Wilder West

The Lab in the Backyard

USC’s Landscape Justice Initiative aims to give students grassroots perspective on their field.

By Patrick Sisson

Installing plants at a Test Plot site with USC student Yiyi Peng, studio instructor and USC Test Plot lead Jen Toy, and local resident Maria Arroyo, a member of the Abuelas de Parque. Image courtesy USC Architecture.

In 2018, after discovering that city arborists planned to plant Australian and South African plant species in response to a future of sustained droughts, the Los Angeles landscape architecture studio Terremoto launched Test Plot, a small-scale scheme designed to engage community groups in growing native plants in city parks and ultimately show that residents can play a role in maintaining the city’s landscape. “There’s a fear of maintenance,” Jenny Jones, ASLA, a partner at Terremoto, says. “We want to celebrate the maintenance.” Continue reading The Lab in the Backyard

Trees on Their Own Terms

New research into forests at the Arboreal Inquiries Symposium.

By Zach Mortice

Forests are many things to many people—repositories of carbon, factories for our atmosphere, near-sentient biological networks, and totems of climate change salvation, to name a few recent claims. But how can we understand forests separately from the way humans see them? Continue reading Trees on Their Own Terms