Conservation landscaping is topic of October Belfast Garden Club Talk

BELFAST — When gardeners practice "conservation landscaping" they create a garden that uses an abundance of native plants, minimizes hardscape, provides wildlife habitat and shelter, and improves water quality. Now a new certification program in conservation landscaping is being offered as a collaborative project between the Knox/Lincoln and the Waldo County Soil and Water Conservation Districts. The certification program will be the topic of Rebecca Jacobs' presentation to the Belfast Garden Club at noon on Tuesday, Oct. 15. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the Abbott Room at the Belfast Free Library.

Jacobs is the program manager of the Knox/Lincoln Soil and Water Conservation District. She has worked as a staff horticulturist at the Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Western Massachusetts, where she honed her skills in native and invasive plants and ecological landscaping, and as the education coordinator for Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. In 2009, she started her own small design-, build-, and consultation-garden business and joined the SWCD.