Landscape Alberta presents:

2015 Green Industry Show & Conference

Venue: BMO/Round-up Centre at Stampede Park
Address: 20 Roundup Way SW, Calgary
Dates: November 19 & 20, 2015
Conference website
Conference program
Registration page
Attend one or both days.
Discounts for members and students.
From the organizers:
Our amazing team of staff and volunteers have put together a conference program aimed to inform and inspire everyone from designers to arborists, owners to students, growers to contractors. Our conference sessions are timely and responsive to industry issues—this event is not to be missed! Please join us this fall in Calgary to make new connections, build your business, and share in the success of our industry in Alberta and beyond.

My two contributions:
Thursday morning—Simple and Effective Ways to Enhance Your Home, Community, and the Larger World:
This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources—such as rain-, grey-, and stormwaters; sun, wind, and shade; along with soil fertility, wild foods, and community fun—in a way that generates far more potential than the sum of their parts. Scarcity is re-visioned into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; how ancient sun- and shade-harvesting sites are informing passively heated, cooled, and powered modern homes and retrofits; and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained stormwater, seed, and yard prunings.
This talk is both an invitation for you to engage and partner with your natural surroundings and community, and a treasure map showing you the way—by planting the rain, dancing with the sun, growing fertile shade, and more—to live as one of your community’s inspirational sparks!
Friday morning: Water-Harvesting Earthworks and Rain Gardens:
Plant the rain before you plant your trees to boost production, reduce flooding, conserve water, and create sustainable oases around your homes and community infrastructure. Raingardens and other small-scale earthworks quickly infiltrate rainfall into the soil where less is lost to evaporation, while reducing erosion. Living ‘pumps’ of vegetation then enable us the access that water. Come learn simple principles and tips to leverage greater success as you implement these simple and effective passive systems. This presentation builds on Brad’s basic water-harvesting talk, while offering more specifics and case studies. Working examples and case studies will be highlighted.