STARKVILLE, Miss. -- One way to improve a home landscape is to learn from the best, an opportunity coming to area gardeners when Douglas Tallamy speaks twice at Mississippi State University.

The Department of Landscape Architecture at MSU is hosting Tallamy, a nationally known speaker and author of several award-winning books. He will speak March 24 and March 25 in two lectures that are free and open to the public.

Tallamy will speak at 6 p.m. March 24 at the Bost Extension Center theater on the topic “Nature’s Best Hope.” He will lecture the next day at 11:30 a.m. in Tully Auditorium on “Restoring the Little Things that Run the World.”

Tallamy is a professor of entomology and wildlife ecology at the University of Delaware. In addition to the two public events, Tallamy will address MSU landscape architecture students in the ecoplanting course and give them critiques on the wildlife aspects of their projects.

Tallamy is author of several critically acclaimed books including “Bringing Nature Home” and has initiated the Homegrown National Park project to encourage homeowners to plant native species for pollinators and other wildlife.

MSU is an equal opportunity institution. For disability accommodation or other information, contact Bob Brzuszek at 662-325-7896 or rfb7@msstate.edu.