APLD Announces 2020 Award of Distinction
The Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) is pleased to announce Vanessa Gardner Nagel, FAPLD, NCIDQ is the winner of the 2020 APLD Award of Distinction. Vanessa is an award-winning designer and owner of Seasons Garden Design LLC in Vancouver, Washington, and a respected garden designer and writer.

Vanessa authored two books for Timber Press, Understanding Garden Design and The Professional Designer's Guide to Garden Furnishings. Her current writing efforts are focused on a series of children's books that involve horticulture, ecology, history, cultural ethnicity, and geography.

 
After receiving a B.S. in Interior Design from San Jose State University, Vanessa practiced commercial interior design for over 21 years in the Bay Area and Portland, Oregon, and taught interior design at Marylhurst University in Oregon. After gardening for most of her life and some landscape design education, Vanessa turned her design career inside-out and began her landscape design career in 2002. She is a sought-after landscape design speaker and has spoken all over the United States as well as in Canada.

Vanessa's own garden includes a wild ravine that has been a rich practicum of ecology and the inspiration for creating an experiential Airbnb with windows onto the ravine. Fueled by deep beliefs in the stewardship of our planet, she walks the talk of sustainability that she preaches to her clients, as well as in her presentations to professionals and amateur gardeners at garden shows and conferences. She writes about garden design, her garden and gardening through her blog, 'Garden Chirps'.

APLD PUBLISHES PAPER ON PLASTIC POTS PRODUCTION, USE, DISPOSAL & ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
The Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) has published a new white paper, Plastic Pots and the Green Industry; Production, Use, Disposal and Environmental Impacts, that examines the key considerations and consequences of the green industry as the driver of plastic plant pot production and use. APLD joined with the Missouri Botanical Garden, a leading public garden in St. Louis, MO. (which began blazing this trail with its own ambitious initiative to recycle plastic pots) to find the facts and to compile them in the report.
APLD is leading the way for the green industry in identifying the problem and brainstorming solutions, recognizing that landscape designers are indirect consumers of these pots, via their projects, and therefore help to perpetuate the demand. "The adoption and use of plastic pots have facilitated efficient production and shipping and contributed substantially to the growth of the landscaping industry. Completed projects, however, yield vast numbers of used pots each year, generating an avalanche of horticultural plastic waste that is difficult to manage," the paper states.
"As stewards of the landscape, designers and others in the green industry are looking to adopt sustainable practices. The fact that 95-98% of the plastic plant pots we use are disposed in landfills, is cause for concern," said Marie Soulliere-Chieppo, who authored the paper and serves on APLD's Sustainability Committee.

"The creation of new landscapes often begins with designers. Finding ways to reduce the amount of plastic plant pots can as well." www.apld.org

As seen in LASN magazine, December 2020.