As we approach the end of the growing season, it’s time to start thinking about next year’s plantings! What trees or shrubs should you plant in your own yard? Which plants will fare best in your particular space and microclimate? Join Horticulturist Rowan Payne-Meyer for a class on garden design for woody plants. We will begin in the Hunnewell Lecture Hall for a discussion on garden design techniques, and then move outdoors to see the design strategies used in the Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden and the Bradley Rosaceous Collection.

The talk presents the contextual study of historic water architecture, its hiatus, and the effort to revive the system to achieve water sufficiency exemplified by the case study of Birkha Bawari, a 21st-century subterranean building fashioned like a step-well, built in the water-stressed city of Jodhpur. The success of this contemporary iteration demonstrates the economic and architectural viability of reclaiming the indigenous water portfolio to mitigate the water crisis.