As a class, we visited five sites in southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey: Hawk Mountain, Fulshaw Craeg, West Philadelphia Peace Park, Penny Pot Park, and Corson’s Inlet Beach. Each site exemplified the area’s major ecoregions: the Ridge and Valley, the Northern Piedmont, and the Atlantic Coastal Pine Barrens.

The purpose of these field trips was to understand how the geology of the earth and the rock and soil conditions contributed to the variety of plant life on the surface. From the xeric mountaintops to the damp bogs, there is an immense range of community types within a 50-mile radius.

Ultimately, understanding how different abiotic and biotic conditions affects and informs the plant life will help us to be conscientious designers, creating lush and healthy environments while conserving precious resources.

This will be especially useful at the West Philly Peace Park, the Studio V site, as you shall see next, but is applied to all planting designs within this portfolio.