Mastering Plant Procurement: Bridging Gaps from Design to Delivery - 1.25 PDH (LA CES/HSW)

Recorded On: 10/13/2025

Tired of watching your inspired designs unravel from plant shortages and dead-end nursery stock? This session delivers expert tactics for securing available, healthy plants on time. Gain field-tested methods to align design with supply, emphasizing genetic diversity, custom growing, and collaboration—ensuring your projects thrive from concept to final installation.

Learning objectives:

Identify key factors affecting nursery stock availability and develop strategies to proactively align design specifications with real-world plant supply.
Evaluate current approaches for integrating landscape systems thinking into mayoral agendas and city planning processes.
Formulate effective communication and collaboration protocols among designers, contractors, and nurseries to streamline procurement timelines and budgets.
Assess practical lessons from real-world procurement challenges and apply those insights to future landscape projects of varying scopes.

Thomas Rainer, ASLA, PLA

Principal

Phyto Studio

Thomas Rainer is a leading voice in ecological landscape design and a registered landscape architect based in Arlington, Virginia. As co-founder of Phyto Studio, he creates innovative, plant-driven landscapes for public and private spaces, with notable work at the Arboretum at Penn State, Toronto Botanical Garden, and over 125 residential gardens. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Landscape Architecture Magazine, and Architectural Digest. A former instructor at George Washington University, Thomas teaches internationally and is co-author of the influential book Planting in a Post-Wild World, which explores the future of ecological planting design.

Ruth Nervig, ASLA, PLA

Partner

SiteWorks

Ruth is a Partner at SiteWorks experienced in design and maintenance across green infrastructure, rooftops, mixed-use, institutional, park, eco-restoration, and high-end residential projects. Before attending landscape architecture school, she spent two years as a private gardener and horticulturalist and also served for two years as a sustainable agricultural extension agent with the Peace Corps in Senegal. Since 2017, Ruth has taught as an adjunct instructor at the City College of New York’s Spitzer School of Architecture and at The Parsons School of Design.

Mary Alice Costich

Plant procurement specialist

Kelco Construction,Inc.

I am a fourth-generation Horticulturalist who has sourced plant material for 45 years in public and private spaces. I began my career in 1980 at my family's Nursery brokerage company on Long Island, New York which was the first of its kind in the US. I joined the Kelco Construction plant procurement team in 2016 and we have supplied plant material for many prestigious projects throughout the New York metropolitan area. I also consider myself a horticultural diplomat, always trying to bring together the Landscape Architect, Landscape Contractor and Nursery industry into an effective collaboration.