Envisioning a Changing
DurangoScape
2025
Strategies for successfully engaging with a changing climate in our yards, parks, and landscapes.
Schedule
Two Days, Two Venues, each packed with powerful presentations and inspiration!
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March 21, 2025, Durango Public Library, <br/>6:00pm Registration Opens<br/>6:30-8:00pm Presentation
Cynthia Bee, a sustainable landscapes expert with Utah Water Ways, has spent her career teaching homeowners how to create landscapes that fit, rather than fight, our challenging climate. Learn how to change your landscape in a series of small, actionable projects achievable by the everyday homeowner.
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March 22, 2025, Doubletree Hilton Ballroom, <br/>12:00pm Registration Opens<br/>1:00-5:00pm Presentations
Peter Del Tredici from Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, takes a fresh, out-of-the-box look at how plants and trees are already adapting to changing climate realities. Marty Pool from the city of Durango considers learnings from the city's turf replacement program and Ali Colbert discusses the Garden-in-a-Box program.
Becoming Radically Practical in Engaging Climate Change
While humans ponder climate change, our plant world and forests are already adapting to a new climate reality in ways not always observable to us. What will the “Flora and Forests of the Future” look like in Durango?
You Will Learn…
How to design and install sustainable gardens—one step at a time
What the city learned from its Pilot Turf Grs Replacement Program
About the future of big grassy lawns in Durango and Colorado
How the forces of urbanization, globalization, and climate warming are destabilizing the native ecosystem and providing opportunities for “opportunistic species.”
How to create a waterwise landscape with “Garden in a Box”
“Understanding the effects of a changing climate on our landscapes, regardless of how one goes about gardening, is a no-brainer. But it is conferences like these that make that process less daunting, and allow us to look at not just the yard in front of us, but how it will look for generations to come.”
Darrin Parmenter, Western Region Director, CSU Extension
Speakers & topics not to miss
We have assembled some of the foremost local and national experts on
adapting our horticultural world to changing climate conditions.
Featured Speakers
Peter Del Tredici
Senior Research Scientist Emeritus
Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University
Marty Pool
Sustainability Manager
City of Durango
Ali Colbert
Garden in a Box Program Manager
Resource Central
Cynthia Bee
Communications and Outreach Manager
Utah Water Ways
Featured Panelists
Our panelists will offer Southwestern Colorado perspective to Mr. Del Tredici’s remarks. They will also observe how natives and non-natives respond to drastically changing temperatures, precipitation patterns, insects and diseases, and the changing composition of native forests. What will fill the places where pines, spruce, fir, and aspen will leave? How will nurseries and arborists adapt?
Scott Skogerboe
Propagator, Ft. Collins Wholesale Nursery
Jeff Wagner
La Plata County Tree Study Group
David Temple
Board Certified Master Arborist, Owner of Trees of Trail Canyon
"Many conferences experienced unexpected audience outreach this year (2020) due to the fact that all programs went virtual at the same time and many smaller organizations missed out on that opportunity because the technological challenges were too great. The Durango Botanic Gardens deserves a Program Excellence Award for the program they offered and the technological challenges they had to overcome to keep in step with the larger, more prominent botanic gardens around the country."
- Ross Shrigley, executive director, Plant Select®️ and past presenter for our 2020 climate conference, Adapting Landscape in the Four Corners to a Changing Climate
Conference Fees & Registration Information
Fee includes both the Friday evening and Saturday presentations.