Terri Hood

Our guest speaker on August 2nd will be Terri Hood, whose presentation will be “Water and mulch in your butterfly garden: taking a permaculture approach”.

Summary:  Terri will discuss understanding & optimizing use of water sources in the South Florida home garden, as well as using in situ sources of mulch to maximum advantage, both within a permaculture principles framework.  Some applications specific to the butterfly garden will be examined.

Bio: Dr. Terri Hood was teaching faculty in the University of Miami Geosciences Department and Ecosystem Science & Policy Program for 24 years, as well as Assistant Director of the Ecosystem Science & Policy program for 17 years.  Some courses pertinent to this discussion that she taught include: ECS 415 Research in Private Urban and Suburban Green Spaces, GSC 410 Environmental Geochemistry, as well as multiple ECS 300- and 500- level Field Studies in Human-Environment Interactions around the globe (including Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden, England, and Portugal).

She was awarded the 2022 Fulbright Foote Prize, which recognizes leadership in environmental stewardship on the University of Miami campuses, for her role in establishing and developing the Gifford Arboretum Teaching Garden.

Hood is the founder and continuing leader of the University of Miami Atala project (2021-present);  this involves weekly monitoring and care of coontie plantings on the UM Gables campus, with collection of excess larva and pupa for distribution by the NABA network.  To date, more than 60,000 atalas have been collected by the project and rehomed by NABA.  Terri is currently retired and happily spending many more hours in the home garden, applying permaculture principles that were taught to college undergrads for many years.