This popular program will be presented with a fresh approach this year. Previous attendees are encouraged to register, as they will benefit from assessing their progress. Managers of crew leaders are also highly encouraged to attend to optimize their ROI.
Each growing season brings distinct challenges for turf management. In 2025, prolonged heat and humidity increased disease pressure, followed by late-season heat and drought that stressed turf and amplified grub damage. This presentation will review key disease, insect, and weed issues from 2025 and outline cultural practices and pesticide strategies for maintaining high-quality turf.
All trees pose some level of risk. Fortunately, tree failures are uncommon—but when they happen, the results can be serious. This presentation explores the conditions that increase the likelihood of failure and other factors considered when assessing tree risk.
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” - but what happens when prevention isn’t an option? This session addresses how construction activities impact soils and trees and presents real-world examples of mitigation measures.
Blending hardscapes and softscapes is about creating harmonious relationships within the landscape. These relationships connect design principles with spatial organization to produce a cohesive composition that enhances both the aesthetic appeal and functional performance of the space.
Let’s explore how the hard and soft elements of a landscape interact to form a balanced and engaging environment.
Landscape management extends far beyond routine lawn care. It encompasses detailed maintenance and management specifications that address every aspect of the outdoor environment, including:
• Plant Care: Pruning, fertilization, and integrated pest management.
• Irrigation: Optimizing water use efficiency.
• Bed Maintenance: Mulching, waste handling, and composting.
• Hardscape Management: Preserving and maintaining built landscape elements.
Great landscapes don’t begin with a shovel—they begin in the mind. In this dynamic 2-part session, award-winning designer Kevin O’Brien draws on 30 years of professional experience to reveal how bold creativity transforms constraints into signature opportunities that set you apart in a crowded marketplace. Through a curated slideshow of projects, Kevin guides you deep into real-world case studies where difficult environments became the catalyst for innovation:
Join Dr. Nangle for a discussion of possible options for low input lawns, and recent research on topics that have made the popular news feed, such as No Mow May and lawncare inputs.
New technologies, using massive datasets and machine-learning algorithms, are increasingly common in urban forestry. Yet, there remains some trepidation about artificial intelligence. This presentation explores applications of emerging tools (e.g. ChatGPT, object detection, sensors) and how these technologies may be used to improve urban tree monitoring and management.
Before everyone yells that there’s no such thing as dirt, let’s take a closer look at urban and traditional soil profiles, then we can discuss how a tree reacts and responds to its environment. After we have a better understanding of why I chose the word dirt, is there something we can do about it? We will start with the history of soil care, then move on to what we are doing now, straight into the future.