The Thousand Year Woods and The Managed Landscape
Over the years, humankind has had a complex relationship with the landscapes we inhabit, and in his new book, arborist and writer William Bryant Logan shares how the symbiotic relationship between the woods and its inhabitants evolved. He also examines the techniques and approaches that allowed this complex relationship to sustain itself over the centuries. In this talk, Logan explores how these techniques and this history can be put to use in the public gardens and the planned landscape that many of us steward today William Bryant Logan is the founder and president of Urban Arborists, a leading tree care firm in New York City. He is on the faculty of the New York Botanical Garden. His four books of nonfiction – Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, Oak: The Frame of Civilization, Air: The Restless Shaper of the World, and Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees – are all published by W.W. Norton. Dirt was made into an award-winning documentary that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Festival and is still shown around the world. In 2012, Logan was presented the Senior Scholar Award by New York State Arborists and the True Professional of Arboriculture award by the International Society of Arboriculture. He lectures around the world about the relationship between people and trees. His firm cares for all kinds for trees in New York, from back garden trees, to neighborhood associations, to Madison Square Park, to the plaza of pollards and aerial hedges in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.