Sustainable Landscaping

Dr. Marietta Loehrlein is Professor Emeritus of Horticulture and Landscaping at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois. While there, she developed a new course, Sustainable Landscaping, for which there were no textbooks at the time. So, she undertook the project to write a textbook that would be immediately pertinent to the topic. She didn’t want to simply address the “how-to” of sustainable landscaping, but also to examine the related issues, such as: energy sources, landscape tools, equipment, and materials, and soil- and water-related environmental issues. Her half-acre backyard is a showcase of sustainable landscaping practices: she has reduced what had been an all-turf lawn area by planting a small prairie, a small woodland, and many species of native trees and shrubs. The stream that runs through the property supports a riparian community that facilitates spring bird migration. The native garden areas support a large number of wildlife species, some of which are never seen, as they are nocturnal and/or live subterranean habitats. However, ground-dwelling bees and at least a dozen species of songbirds are regularly seen. It is both a pollinator-friendly area, and also a certified wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation. Dr. Loehrlein previously published Home Horticulture: Principles and Practices (Cengage). She is an Evansville, Indiana native, earned her college degrees at the University of Arizona (B.S., M.S.) and The Pennsylvania State University (Ph. D.), and was a Research Associate in a fruit tree breeding program in central California for SunWorld, International. She holds a patent on the regal pelargonium ‘Camelot’.