Thomas Rainer is a landscape architect, teacher, and author. He is a passionate advocate for an ecologically expressive design aesthetic that does not imitate nature, but interprets it. He has designed landscapes for the U.S. Capitol grounds, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, and The New York Botanical Garden. He works in Washington, D.C. as a Principal for the landscape architectural firm Rhodeside & Harwell and blogs at the popular site Grounded Design. His first book, Planting in a Post-Wild World, co-authored with Claudia West, was just released by Timber Press this year and awarded one of American Horticultural Society’s top books of the year.
Where Ecology Meets Horticulture: Designing Plant Communities. The American yard has been dominated by clipped foundation shrubs, groomed lawns, and trees with mulch circles. But a new aesthetic is emerging, inspired by the way plants grow in nature–a softer, more lush vision of niche plants filling every layer and covering the ground. Join Thomas Rainer, coauthor of the recent hit book Planting in a Post-Wild World, to learn how plants fit together in nature and how to use this knowledge to create gardens that are more satisfying, more resilient, and less work.
