Photo by Larry Weaner Landscape Associates
Prescribed Fire as a Foundational Landscape Tool:
From Campus to Residence
Bert Harris, Ph.D. and Fritz Reuter
Native Grasslands Restoration: Is Fire Needed?
Bert Harris, Ph.D.
Harris will begin by covering the Clifton Institute’s recent research on remnant Piedmont grasslands. He'll discuss how the Institute is using these results to set goals for meadow plantings and grassland restoration projects including the 50 acres that are burned annually at the Institute. He’ll then talk about the Institute’s 100-acre grassland restoration experiment that is testing eight different methods (e.g. fire, mowing, tilling, planting, herbicide) to convert non-native fields to native meadows. He'll finish by covering how even the timing of prescribed fire can affect the resulting plant communities and pollinator habitat.
Burning on the Run: Prescribed Burns in the Small Scale Landscape
Fritz Reuter
Prescribed fire need not be limited to expansive ecological restorations, but can also apply to smaller scale residential and commercial properties. Fritz Reuter is the rare bird who has successfully advocated for and incorporated this highly productive tool into a small landscape design/build practice. He will demonstrate how his “burn on the run” techniques have resulted in the type of vegetative vigor that only a practice done for thousands of years - before centuries-long wholesale suppression - could re-offer. He will also discuss how he advocates for and explains the benefits of prescribed burning to his clients.
Wednesday, March 26th, 2025 | 2:00 - 4:45 PM ET
Category: Professional
Fee: $58
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Registration open & recording viewable for 3 months after live date.
Instructor Bios:
Bert Harris, Ph.D. is a Co-Director of the Clifton Institute, a nature center and research station on 900 acres in Warrenton, Virginia. At the Institute, Harris directs a program of ecological research that has the goal of providing actionable recommendations to landowners. He is also a passionate land manager and native-plant gardener, and he works with his team and local landowners to restore native plant and animal communities. He holds a B.S. in Ecology and Biodiversity from Sewanee: The University of the South and a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University and he’s an adjunct professor at American University.
Fritz Reuter is a conservation-based landscape designer and land planner, and founded Virginica, LLC in 2018 in the piedmont region of Northern Virginia. He attributes his passion for conservation principles to his family’s deep roots in the area, and their commitment to stewardship on their home place offers some of the most compelling proof that a dedication to these principles equates to profound improvements across time. Championing this blueprint of boots on the ground success, Fritz works on many similar properties throughout the local arena with the ultimate goal of leaving a restoration-minded footprint both on their soils and in the minds of the tenants whose names are on the deeds.