NEIGHBORnetwork

Karin Reber

Sustainable Landscape Desig�er

By Melinda Thompson

Karin Reber is a sustainable landscape designer. In 2016, she designed the Kensington Library Literary Garden as a place for people to relax while reading their books. The garden is the home to a variety of native plants found around the region. She also works as a landscape designer for Campbell and Ferrara in Alexandria, VA. Q: Can you share a little bit about your background? A: I am from Kensington, MD, which is why this site means so much to me—this is my hometown. I grew up here. I live in Arlington, VA, right now, but my parents still live in Kensington. They are only a few blocks away. And as part of my master’s thesis through George Washington University (GW), I needed to pick a watershed site and plan to make a landscape master plan at a location within that watershed. For a year, I was walking down Rock Creek Park and studying all the wildlife that was going on, all the plant life that I could see, drainage issues, just the general climate . . . I incorporated everything that I learned and came up with a master plan for the library. The full plan is for all three acres of the library grounds, but we quickly came to realize that unless we got some kind of huge donation [that was beyond our means]. At some point, maybe we could do more, but with the reality of the situation, this is what we ended up with. I’m grateful that we have this little plot of land, and it really makes an impact on the surrounding neighborhood. Q: How does the Kensington Library Literary Garden affect the local community? A: It started out as just grass—the walnut trees and the dogwood were here, but everything else was just lawn. It wasn’t until two years after we first broke ground on the garden that we got a paved walkway. Once the walkway went in, people started noticing it—folks who had never been here before. It changed everything. All of a sudden, it made it look like a destination. Since then, almost every time I’m here, someone will stop and talk to me and say how much they appreciate the garden. People have told me that they come here to meditate. They do yoga out here. We started doing events normally in the library, like children’s reading hour, outside—especially with the pandemic. It’s been nice to have a place outside that people can go. People come here and they take inspiration for their own gardens as well by reading all the plant labels. To me, one of the most obvious things, but one of the best things, is that people come out here and read their books after they’ve just gone into the library. They’ll come and they’ll pick a bench, and they’ll start reading their book. Q: Why did you choose to use all native plants? A: I had always kind of been interested in native plants, but it wasn’t until my last year of grad school at GW that I really started feeling passionate about them. The entire last year of the program revolved around stormwater management and taking care of erosion problems and keeping stormwater on your property—things like rain gardens and bioswales—but the part that I liked most about that last year was the indepth study of native plants and the wildlife that depends on them—if you plant this, then this animal will come, and you know if you have Black-eyed

Susans in the garden, you’ll probably get goldfinches. If you plant native honeysuckle, you’ll probably get hummingbirds. I really loved the fact that it’s a “build it and they will come” mentality with native plants. Q: How did you choose specific plants and where to plant them? A: The plants that are in this garden were largely chosen because they’re what I could get on a very, very limited budget. I scoured plant sales, and one time, I did a Dumpster dive—somebody threw away this Arrowwood Viburnum that just didn’t look good enough to sell, and they didn’t want to keep it around in the nursery. I got a bunch of plants that way. The shrubs didn’t do too well with that, but a lot of the smaller stuff, like the ferns, did, I have some Cinnamon Fern and some Christmas Fern, and my prized plant that I saved for the garden is a Trillium. People are obsessed with Trilliums, and I was lucky enough to be able to save one from certain death and bring it to the garden. The rest of the plants were donations and stuff from the $5 section of some nurseries. When we started, in terms of placement, we didn’t have any power equipment. We didn’t have a sod cutter. We had a group of volunteers who had heard that this was happening and wanted to be a part of it, and we had some shovels, so it was however many plant beds we could create in one weekend and then throwing in plants and hoping that they would work. Some stuff didn’t make it. A lot of it did.

Q: What is the most fulfilling part of your profession? A: One of the neighbors who lives across the street, I see him in the garden all the time. He likes to come here and meditate. And he was up here washing his car—I think because he just likes that it’s quieter and a little more peaceful than being right on the busy street. He asked me, “Do you ever come and just enjoy the garden?” and I had to think about it for a second, because so many times when I get here and I look at what hasn’t been done. I look at the weeds. I haven’t put out the new signs. This needs to be done, that needs to be done. He really got me thinking about what I have accomplished here. Having people learn about native plants. Having people enjoy being outside. Just having a peaceful, calming place to go. That is something that I have accomplished, so every time I see the plant beds that haven’t been tackled, haven’t been freed of weeds yet, I remember what he said to me. And that is when my passion is renewed. Q: From your experience, what are the most difficult plants to take care of? A: My philosophy here is that if it can’t survive on its own, it’s not supposed to be here. One common plant that I personally have never had luck with is Coreopsis. I have never had any luck with getting it to live. And it’s such a beautiful plant and pollinators love it. I’ve tried several times to get it to grow, and I can’t get it to live past one season, so it’s not in the library garden anymore. We do not have irrigation here. We have to rely on Mother Nature to do her part. Q: What activities do you like to do outside of gardening? A: I’m married, and I like to hang out with my husband, Tyler. I go out with him when he’s doing wildlife photography. I’ll go on hikes with him. We have two fluffy cats who we’re probably more obsessed with than we should be. I am an animal person. And I like doing Zumba. Q: Do you have a garden at home and what type of plants do you have? A: I have a mixture of native plants and plants that I find cool because in my own personal garden, I’m not as strict about just having native plants. Last summer, I got some Canna from my dad because he loves tropicals. I got Elephant Ears. I just created this whole tropical paradise with Banana trees and Coleus. Nothing native to be seen, but it did look amazing. Q: What advice would you give to beginner gardeners? A: The best advice I can give is to do your research and ask people who are more experienced in gardening about what they know and what they have learned. A great resource is the Wild Ones Chapter and the Maryland Native Plant Society, and joining organizations like those. The members of these groups know so much, and there’s so much to learn from them. The other thing I can tell a beginner gardener is that plants don’t always listen to what they’re supposed to do. A plant book might say it’s only going to get to 4 or 5 feet tall, but if it’s really happy right there, maybe it’ll get to 6 or 7 feet. o

Melinda Thompson is a senior journalism major with a vocal performance minor and a concentration in women’s studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD. She is an intern this fall with Washington Gardener.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.