With Sara Weaner Cooper, Executive Director, New Directions in the American Landscape (NDAL)
Thursday, October 16
12-1 p.m.
Virtual: On Zoom
Free!
Register to get the Zoom link:
https://reg.learningstream.com/reg/event_page.aspx?ek=0005-0014-80012aab90834a03a3b428a48716d8cf
In April of 2022, Sara and Evan Cooper moved into their new home in a suburban Philadelphia neighborhood. After one spring and summer of consistently mowing their ~5,000 square foot front lawn, Sara eagerly initiated the process of transitioning the lawn into a native wildflower meadow. She wanted to avoid four things, however: chemical use, heavy labor, smothering, and an early-stage ugly phase.
Leaving the turf in place and collaborating with her father and Landscape Designer Larry Weaner, she began a turf-to-meadow conversion process that relied on light-touch actions that simultaneously weakened the lawn and strengthened her newly planted meadow.
After two growing seasons, the results exceeded expectations…enough to be featured in the The New York Times in 2024 and the BBC in 2025. Learn the practical steps they took, the successes and challenges they have so far encountered, and their plans for guiding the meadow to maturity.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sara Weaner Cooper, New Directions in the American Landscape (NDAL)'s executive director, began her role with NDAL in 2018 as educational program coordinator. She holds a M.A. in anthropology and education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a B.A. in anthropology and education from Bryn Mawr College. Her and her husband Evan Cooper’s home landscape was featured in a BBC article in 2025 and The New York Times article by Margaret Roach in 2024, which illustrate an experimental yet highly successful organic transition from lawn to native meadow. Sara has presented about this transition for the Ecological Landscape Alliance’s Annual Conference, Grow Native MA, and the Southern Adirondack Audubon Society. One of her passions and long-term goals is to work with schools on eco-cultural land stewardship curricula. In 2024 NDAL received the American Horticultural Society (AHS) Award for Horticultural Innovation, which recognizes an individual/organization “whose innovations have made the field of horticulture more sustainable and accessible to all.”
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