Annual Author Talk with William Bryant Logan

Join arborist William Bryant Logan on Sunday, August 31st 5-7 pm for a special talk about his award-winning book, Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees. 

Once, farmers knew how to make living hedges and feed flocks on tree-branch hay. Rural people pruned hazel for both nuts and straight, flexible rods for bridges, walls, and baskets. Townspeople cut beeches for charcoal to fuel ironworks, while shipwrights shaped oaks into hulls. Communities thrived because they knew how to cut trees so they would sprout again.

Pruning didn’t destroy trees—it created the healthiest, most diverse, and sustainable woodlands we’ve ever known. In Sprout Lands, William Bryant Logan traces this everyday ecology from the English fens to Spain, Japan, and California, offering both practical lessons on living with trees and hope in their persistence and generosity.

Logan is the author of Sprout Lands, Oak, Air, and Dirt (adapted into an award-winning documentary). A certified arborist and founder of Urban Arborists, Inc., he has spent three decades working with trees, teaches at the New York Botanical Garden, and has won numerous awards, including the 2021 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing.