New Book by Emeritus Professor Ahern Explores Sustainable Approaches to Landscape Design on Cape Cod and the Islands

Cape Cod and the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket are special places known for their distinctive flora, including pine-oak forests, sandplain grasslands and sand dunes peppered with bearberry shrubs. Unfortunately, this unique sense of place is under threat. In recent decades, contemporary landscape practices have come to depend on environmentally stressful fertilizers and irrigation systems, replacing this sensitive ecoregion’s native flora with generic turfgrasses and popular commercial nursery trees and shrubs that could exist anywhere.

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In his new book “Design with Nature on Cape Cod and the Islands,” Jack Ahern, professor emeritus of landscape architecture, seeks to reverse this damaging trend by offering landscape professionals, local officials and homeowners a sustainable approach to landscape design based on the ecoregion’s native plants and plant communities. Presenting detailed discussions of Cape Cod’s natural history, Ahern focuses on the principal plant communities that define its landscape character and that are well adapted to local soils and growing conditions, including climate change.

The book, published by University of Massachusetts Press on April 15, also includes strategies for ecological planting design and a portfolio of photographs of active ecologically designed landscapes.

“’Design with Nature’s’ discussion of native plant communities and its portfolio of landscape designs are informative, inspiring and demonstrate the rich potential of following an ecological approach that utilizes species native to the islands and Cape,” says Darrel Morrison, author of the book “Beauty of the Wild: A Life Designing Landscapes Inspired by Nature.”

“Written for professionals and scholars in the fields of landscape architecture, ecological restoration and land management, as well as for property owners, ‘Design with Nature’ provides a useful, instructional guide, exemplifying essential perspectives and practices,” says Nancy Rottle, co-author of the book “Ecological Design.” “Ahern is an international expert in landscape ecology and ecological design, and his expertise is elegantly communicated in this deeply researched book.”

“Design with Nature on Cape Cod and the Islands” is available for purchase now from University of Massachusetts Press.