Designing for Habitat: From Back Yards to Byways with C. Colston Burrell June 26, 2025

Designing for Habitat: From Back Yards to Byways with C. Colston Burrell
June 26, 2025
7 pm
Live and on Zoom
Members will receive the Zoom link the Sunday before the talk.
Free Center, 725 Main Street, Middletown, CT
Free for members; $10 for non-members (register here)

What does a garden need to attract and sustain wildlife? How do we meet the aesthetic goals of owners while providing the structure and resources necessary to maintain the insects and birds we love? Can we create healthy habitat with a mixture of native and exotic plants? This lecture explores the possibilities and limitations of designing sustainable habitat gardens at various scales, from urban spaces to rural retreats.

Colston Burrell is an acclaimed lecturer, garden designer, award-winning author and photographer. A certified chlorophyll addict, Cole is an avid and lifelong plantsman, gardener and naturalist. He has twice won the American Horticulture Society Book Award for Hellebores: A Comprehensive Guide, Timber Press, in 2007, and for A Gardener’s Encyclopedia of Wildflowers, Rodale Press, in 1998. Cole received the Award of Distinction from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers for his work promoting sustainable gardening practices.

Cole is a popular lecturer internationally on topics of design, plants and ecology. He has shared his love of plants and regional landscapes with professional and amateur audiences for 45 years. He is principal of Native Landscape Design and Restoration, which specializes in blending nature and culture through artistic design.

Cole has teamed up with Friendship Tours and The Minnesota State Horticultural Society for Garden and Nature Tours with C. Colston Burrell to offer personalized leisure tours to exceptional gardens and natural areas around the globe. His one-of-a-kind tours explore the best private and public gardens and the most ecologically diverse natural areas to create once in a lifetime travel adventures.

He has an M.S. in Horticulture from University of Maryland and a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Minnesota. He is a lecturer in the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he teaches about plants and their ecological connections to natural systems and cultural landscapes.