Rudbeckia (Black eyed susan) at the National Air and Space Museum

April 14: Brooklyn Bridge Park Lessons (so far!) in Constructed Ecology 

Speaker: Rebecca McMackin, Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Garden Designer 

Brooklyn Bridge Park, an 85-acre, organic park in the middle of New York City, was created with ecology in mind. The Park’s award-winning piers host top notch recreation, from opera to outdoor films, all of it beautifully designed. But the piers also contain native woodlands, freshwater wetlands, salt marshes, and numerous meadows. These areas closely echo native ecosystems and are managed with an emphasis on wildlife habitat.  

This talk will detail many of the strategies employed to design an ecological park, as well as the management techniques used to cultivate biodiverse parkland. If we can do it, so can you. 

Bio: Rebecca McMackin is an ecologically obsessed horticulturist and garden designer. By day, she is the Director of Horticulture at Brooklyn Bridge Park, where she manages 85 acres of diverse parkland organically and with an eye towards habitat creation for birds, butterflies, and soil microorganisms. In her imaginary free time, Rebecca writes about landscape management and pollination ecology, as well as designs the occasional garden. She has been published by and featured in the New York Times, the Landscape Institute and on NPR.