I get to PLAY!

Well, to experiment on the lecture circuit next week.

Sometimes, for those of us who travel around, talking about our horticultural lives, topic and style get set by the group. They even impose titles sometimes. Hate that.

Childhood Garden Memories

This week, a group in my hometown asked me and I’m taking liberty of doing an odd topic. A very personal topic: childhood memories surface and reoccur in my garden designs.

Here are the main points:

– Fragrance and smells. Not just pretty ones either!
– Muddy roads, sandy paths. Yeah, even multi-million dollar garden get dirt paths from me!
– Wholesome food. We grew all of our own food. Am I tied to this red clay because I ate so much of it?
– Wisteria, bamboo, magnolias, broom sedge, pecans, kudzu. These plants tell stories of the south.
– Men. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Though not often discussed now, men created and ran most rose, camellia, amaryllis, and plants societies.

I’ve had the distinct privilege of designing so many southern things, rural things, things of a very local, distinctive place into gardens. Moore Farms is one garden you can see picture of easily, is a very modern place. In fact a place where weve set a long term vision, but the design theme or mantra, is: a southern garden exploded out of bounds!

The picture above makes for a nice example. We designed the building, the landscape, the grass walks, to feel like an old barn but to be very contemporary. Evan Clements and Travis Riccino were interns who did the landscape, David Tobin, architect did the building.