THe Layer Cake

One way to understand any landscape is to image slicing through it like the layers of a cake and then considering all the interactions between the layers.  Based on work by Scottish landscape architect Ian McHarg (UPenn), the layer cake approach first arrived in Vermont in the 1980s after UVM Field Naturalists studied it under Tom Siccama and Art Johnson at the Yale School of Forestry Camp.  The Vermont Master Naturalist Program is designed upon this approach–a  bedrock to birds exploration of each town.  Special locations are chosen because they have stories to tell.  Laid down on its side, the layer cake becomes a timeline of Vermont natural history.

Artwork by Lorna Dielentheis