When designing wildscapes, you need to think like a walnut, see like a squirrel, be like a bee and forage like a bird. Wildscapes replicate the layered structure of wild ecosystems to maximize biodiversity, habitat, resilience & beauty.

1. Layering wildscapes
designing with plant communities

2. when designing wildscapes

3. think like a walnut

4. see like a squirrel
Photo by Joel Sartore, National Geographic

5. be like a bee

6. forage like a bird

7. National Parks, Nature Ways Singapore
Replicate the layered structure of wild ecosystems
to maximize biodiversity, habitat, resilience & beauty

8. I live in a typical suburban neighbourhood

9. I once had a normal front yard full of asphalt, grass
& cookie cutter foundation plantings

10. I want a
normal front
yard

11. But how we see normal is far from normal (and is
an ecological disaster)
.Brianna, Flickr

12. Photo by tquist24, Flickr

13. Photo by Ben Vander

14. Traditional garden design isolates plants “as individual objects in a sea
of mulch. We place them in solitary confinement.”
~Thomas Rainer
Photo by Thomas Rainer

15. I’ve never been a fan of normal, so wildscaped my
yard (with a little help from my friends!)
Photo by Yannick Menard on Unsplash

16. Meanwhile, early one morning back at my house I
had a visitor

21. I share my home with a forest being

22. Walnut hickory oak maple forest this being is

23. Humans can speak to forests. And forests can speak back.
The question is: What does it mean to speak? What does it
mean to listen?
~Eduardo Kohn

24. How does this being see itself & its
situation?

25. gifts
How does this being see itself & its
situation?

26. attributes
behaviours
needs
How does this being see itself & its
situation?
gifts

27. behaviours

28. needs

29. attributes

30. What did I forget?

31. Trees talk, know family ties and care for their
young
Source: Intelligent Trees, directed by Julia Dordel & Guido Tolke

32. relationships
spirit, soul, breath
How does this being see itself & its
situation?
thoughts
language

33. Designing wildscapes means combining western
scientific knowledge

34. With traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)
Photo by Jim Babb, Flickr

35. TEK approaches are based
on the premise that
“humanity” and “nature”
are inseparable
Source: Tending the Wild documentary

36. The white man sure ruined this country. It's
turned back to wilderness.
~James Rust, Southern Miwok elder
Photo by Dan Charles/NPR

37. MesoAmerican Research Center
For centuries people used TEK for agroecology

38. Christopher Shein, The Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture
Today permaculturists are applying TEK to design
food forests

39. understory
shrubs living
mulches
carpet the ground
vines(wall)
roots & tubers & bulbs
fruits
nuts
berries
leaves
roots
tubers
bulbs
sprouts
shoots
flower buds
pods
petals
hips
seeds
design a layered food forest
feeders
(nitrogen fixers)
protectors
(insectaries)
miners
(minerals)
edible (people or wildlife)
biodiversity (resilience)
enlivening beauty
Think multiple gifts diversify
edibles
architectural
mounding
ferny
grassy
combine shapes
erect
spreading
cascading
perennial | annual | biennial | ruderallife expectancy
canopy (roof)

40. Wild roses
(Rosa spp.)
Sweet woodruff
(Galium odoratum)
Mulberry
(Morus rubra)
Snowberry
(Symphoricarpos)
Pawpaw
(Asimina triloba)
Black locust
(Robinia pseudoacacia)
Sweet cicely
(Myrrhis odorata)
Spotted beebalm
(Monarda punctata)
Elderberry
(Sambucus spp.)
Daylilies
(Hemerocallis spp.)
Woodland strawberry
(Fragaria vesca)
Solomon’s seal
(Polygonatum
biflorum)
Wild ginger
(Asarum canadense)
Eastern waterleaf
(Hydrophyllum
virginianum)
Walnut Grove
Black Walnut
(Juglans nigra)

41. The big shift
...in horticulture over the next decade is a shift from thinking about plants as individual
objects to thinking about plants as social networks--that is, communities of compatible
[beings] interwoven in dense mosaics.
~Thomas Rainer
Photo by Saxon Holt, PhotoBotanic.com

43. Each plant has different strategies for thriving in
community
Canada milkvetch (Amorpha Canescens)
Photo by Guy Henderieckx, Flickr

44. Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Designing plant communities using layers
Some plants are more sociable than others

46. Keith Hawkins, FlickrThomas Rainer and Claudia West: Designing plant communities using layers

47. Have you ever thought “the overall feel of the
prairie was just… off”?
Meadows-in-a-can are a myth, Vince Gresham

49. One plant is just a single note; no matter how beautiful on
its own, it needs other notes to form a melody. That’s
where the real music can begin.
~Roy Diblik, author of The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden

50. Photo by Saxon Holt, PhotoBotanic.com

51. Start by analyzing the existing structural layer:
trees, shrubs, buildings, fences...

52. “See in your site the wild beating heart that wants
to be expressed through planting.”
~Thomas Rainer
Photo by Benjamin Vogt, Monarch Gardens

53. Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Designing plant communities using layers

54. Look for moments that knock your socks off &
amplify

55. Start to think through how you can replace mulch
with plant layers

56. Layers are a lot more like a sieve, or a slab of cartoon
cheese, full of holes. A series of eruptions or localized
uprising is a better way of thinking about it, rather than a
uniform, homogeneous layer.
~Nigel Dunnett
Image: Kinghorn Gardens

57. Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Designing plant communities using layers
tall
anchors
well behaved
long-lived
year round presence (die elegantly)
mid-height
satellite groups & drifts
clumpers
seasonal stars with flowers or
textures that shine for a bit, then
blend in

60. Architectural layer creates structure: switchgrass,
rattlesnake master, joe pye weed (10-15%)

61. Photo of culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum) by Peter Gorman, Flickr

62. Maple leaf viburnum

63. “Plants that die elegantly”

64. Think about the structural plants as anchors

66. Moments erupt from the seasonal theme layer
(25-40%): Rudbeckia, Salvia, Solidago

67. Think of these seasonal plants as satellites
attracted to the anchors

68. Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Designing plant communities using layers
“the essence of the community”
low growing
increase biodiversity
knit the community together
living mulch
possible spring colour

69. The missing layer… carpet the floor with a living
mulch
Photo by Mark Baldwin, NYT

70. Living mulch spreads quickly (~50%): Carex,
Glandularia canadensis, Packera obovata

71. Fragaria virginia, Asarum canadense, tiarella
cordifolia, geranium maculatum
Photo by Prairie Nursery

72. Fillers populate gaps in the layers: native phlox,
native columbine, cardinal flower (5-10%)

73. “You almost have to look at a plant from the
vantage point of a chipmunk to see its shape”
~Thomas Rainer
Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash

74. How to design a layered
plan community
Green Abundance by Design

75. Thomas Rainer and Claudia West: Designing plant communities using layers

77. Thomas Rainer, Grounded Design

78. Image: Jared Barnes, Meristem

79. To create a planting that’s readable and functional,
start with a dozen plants
3 early spring, 3 late spring/early summer, 3 mid-summer & 3 fall
richpope, Flickr

80. 5-7 plants
short mix (sedges & low grasses
legible layers
tidier (designed) look
less diversity = less wildlife
large diversity
tall mix
mingled layers
wilder (messy) look
more diversity = more wildlife

81. 5-7 plants
short mix (sedges & low grasses
legible layers
tidier (designed) look
less diversity = less wildlife
Image by Roy Diblik, The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden

82. Know your plants
Image: Jared Barnes, Meristem

83. Colours erupt from the green matrix
Image: Jared Barnes, Meristem

84. Intimacy is good
Photo by Jared Barnes, Meristem

85. Bulbs offer seasonal moments
Image: Jared Barnes, Meristem

86. Photo by John Roger Palmour
A grouping of plants by sociability
Foamflower (a very sociable Level 5) dominates, followed by wild ginger and trillium
(Levels 2 to 3) and just a few ferns (more independent at Level 1)

87. Even in boulevards and traffic strips, plants prefer
to live in layered communities
The Grey to Green project in Sheffield, UK. Image by Nigel Dunnett

88. Streetscape meadow matrix
City of Vaughan

89. Tectonic Safari

90. Tectonic Safari

91. Benjamin Vogt, Monarch Gardens

96. Green Abundance by Design

97. Green Abundance by Design

98. Green Abundance by Design

99. Multi-stem Amelanchier paired with perennial herbaceous layer by Nigel Dunnett

100. Trentham woodland modeled on North Eastern forests by Nigel Dunnett

101. The Grey to Green project in Sheffield, UK. Image by Nigel Dunnett

102. Barbican Estate by Nigel Dunnett

103. Piet Oudolf-designed grass matrix using Sesleria autumnalis

104. Park in Leuvehoofd Rotterdam designed by Piet Oudolf, photo by Jared Barnes

105. Image: Gatsbys Gardens

106. Image: Gatsbys Gardens

107. Photo by Claire Takacs of a Larry Weaner garden

108. Photo by Saxon Holt, PhotoBotanic.com of the Frey Garden

109. travel locally
explore plant communities near you

110. Map your yard, neighbourhood or a local forest
being using iNaturalist

111. Becoming an explorer helps you understand plant
communities & how they change over time

112. Mapping the seasons reveals treasures such as the
late fall beauty of zigzag goldenrod

113. Introduces you to a wealth of sedge species who
would happily carpet the floor of your wildscape

114. And beings you might attract if you learn their
preferred plant community

115. For me, future travel destinations include the
walnut savanna at Clear Creek Forest
Photo by Larry Reis, Flickr
Started from walnuts from trees along the nearby creek. Nuts were planted by squirrels and quickly grew into trees, creating a
black walnut forest. Plants thriving within the grove in the spring and early summer are wild blue phlox, false mermaid-weed,
white trillium, red baneberry, northern waterleaf and Virginia waterleaf. In the summer, after the spring wildflowers become
dormant, a lush layer of silky wild rye and Virginia wild rye takes over. Growing among the grasses are the beautiful tall
bellflower and the unusual wild coffee. Sweet cicely is also very common in the summer. The dominance by this single tree
species, the spacing of the trees, the lack of a shrubby understorey and the tall grasses led to the nickname walnut savanna.

116. The black walnut forests of Nith River floodplain
Black walnut, black maple (Acer nigrum), white ash (Fraxinus americana), hackberry (Celtis occidentalis) and bur oak (Quercus
macrocarpa). Understorey includes wild ginger, toothwort, zig-zag goldenrod, common blue violet, Dutchman’s breeches,
running strawberry vine, common wood sedge, Pennsylvania sedge and graceful sedge... Unusual plants include Gray’s sedge,
green dragon, twinleaf, moonseed, wild coffee and wahoo.

117. And the tallgrass prairie at Ojibway Prairie Complex
Dan Cetinic, Flickr

118. From the very beginning of the world,
the other species were a lifeboat for the people.
Now, we must be theirs.
~Robin Wall Kimmerer
coniferconifer, Flickr

119. joyce_hostyn@yahoo.com
rewildmycity.com
rideau1000islandsmastergardeners.com
lakesidecommunitygarden.org