Designing for Nature
with Edwina von Gal, founder and Toshi Yano, director, Perfect Earth Project
Wednesday, May 22, from 7:00-8:00pm ET
Virtual
$15 AHS members/$20 non-members
Free your garden and design for independence! Join renowned landscape designer Edwina von Gal and Toshi Yano, Director of Perfect EarthProject, as they discuss their new vision of nature-based gardening. In this webinar, Edwina and Toshi will show how the approaches that drive contemporary horticultural aesthetics and methods often do not prioritize the health of plants, people, and the planet. Instead, they will offer a holistic approach to land care that’s based in the science of plant-wildlife relationships, soil microbiology, and water and biomass management. Edwina and Toshi will show how this new approach, based on what they call “PRFCTPractices”, is being implemented in landscapes as diverse as home gardens, public parks, colleges, corporate campuses, and cemeteries, and how you can incorporate them into your own practice.
A leading voice in sustainable gardening and landscape design, Edwina von Gal founded the Perfect EarthProject in 2013 to promote nature-based, toxic-free land care for the health of people, their pets, and the planet. As principal of her eponymous landscape design firm, Edwina created landscapes with a focus on simplicity, sustainability, and beauty for private and public clients around the world. Her work has been published widely, including in The New York Times, Vogue, and Architectural Digest, and her book Fresh Cuts won the Quill and Trowel award for garden writing in 1998. In 2023, she was named a legend and trailblazer in Wallpaper’s Guide to Creatives in America. She has served on boards and committees for a number of horticultural organizations; she is currently on the board of What Is Missing, Maya Lin’s multifaceted media artwork about the loss of biodiversity, and is an honorary trustee of Native Plant Trust. In 2022, she received the LongHouse Visionary Award from LongHouse Reserve. Her other awards include the New York School of Interior Design’s Green Design Award, the Isamu Noguchi Award, and Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for the Visual Arts.
Toshi Yano is the Director of Perfect Earth Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating, engaging, and inspiring individuals, land care professionals, and decision makers to adopt the toxic-free, nature-based, and climate-responsible land care practices necessary for a healthier, more sustainable—and more beautiful—environment for all. He is a Director At Large at the American Public Gardens Association (APGA), where he
chairs the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility Committee; a co-founder of BIPOC Hort, an advocacy group for people of color working in designed landscapes; and the Landscape and Garden Advisor at Wethersfield Estate & Garden, where hepreviously worked as Director of Horticulture. While at Wethersfield, he spearheaded the process that placed the site on the National Register of Historic Places, and won the New York State Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation and The Garden Conservancy’s Jean and John Greene Prize for Excellence in the Field of American Gardening.
