Professor of Horticultural Ecology, James Hitchmough, will lecture for the LSU College of Art & Design on April 1, 2015 at 5:00 p.m. in the Art & Design Auditorium (room 103). Hitchmough’s lecture is a part of Paula G. Manship Endowed Lecture.

Dr. James Hitchmough is a Professor of Horticultural Ecology and Dean of the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield, the leading Landscape Architectural School in the UK.  Hitchmough’s research deals with the design, horticultural and ecological understandings necessary to construct and manage herbaceous plant communities; as well as the human attitudes to the appearance of this type of vegetation. In conjunction with his college Professor Nigel Dunnett, Hitchmough has tried to articulate a view of how ecological understanding and processes can be integrated into design and management to produce urban vegetation that is highly sustainable. In his lecture, “Planting Design as Uncertain Cultural and Ecological Dance,” Hitchmough will attempt to navigate the audience through the issues based on his 30 years of research and practice.

Since 2000, Hitchmough has been road testing his ongoing research in practice with Professor Dunnet. He was the principle planting design consultant for the 2012 London Olympic Park. Currently, Hitchmough has major planting design projects in the UK, Spain, Denmark, Australia and China. For more information about Hitchmough’s work, please visit: http://www.landscape.dept.shef.ac.uk/james-hitchmough/