W. Gary Smith

Look up the word “numinous” and you’re well on the way to understanding what you can gain by unleashing your creativity. Landscape architect W. Gary Smith opened his recent lecture at the Toronto Botanical Garden with a detail photo of a raked gravel garden at Philadelphia’s Chanticleer. He described a magical moment when cherry blossoms fluttered to the ground, filling the patterned grooves with their gossamer white petals. As he stepped into the centre of the gravel bed, the wind whipped around him, and more blossoms swirled about, creating the magical feeling of being in the middle of a snow globe. No setting, no occasion, no moment can be numinous by design. All we can hope to achieve, Smith says, is to set up the place where these moments can take place.

From that powerful opening image, Smith proceeded to describe how, by using eight universal patterns created by various natural or human processes, we can unleash our creativity to design landscapes that are ready for their numinous moments. If I tell you what those eight universal patterns are, this post would sound like a text book, but believe me, when Smith reveals these patterns and how he uses them to inform his designs, nothing could be less like rote learning. If you can’t attend one of his lectures, then buy his award-winning book From Art to Landscape: Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design, and if it’s sold out, visit his Stooks and Punes installation this spring at the Toronto Botanical Garden, and if you can’t make it to the garden, then visit his website – but be careful; he just might unleash your creativity.

There’s a buzz in the air about local hero Clement Kent, a York University postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biology in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering and president of the Horticultural Societies of Parkdale and Toronto.  Kent founded the Pollinator Garden Project two years ago to teach gardeners, members of the public and school children how to create and conserve habitat for pollinators. The success of this project has garnered him the Pollinator Advocate Award of Canada from the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC).  Kent will accept his award at an international conference at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington in late October. Whoo-hoo!

I first met Donna at the Garden Writers Symposium in Portland Oregon — she was chattering on about soil and microbes while we sat on the bus, heading to our next garden-gazing excursion. Soil is a subject very dear to my green thumb, so this was the start of a beautiful friendship. I first met Steven at a Professional Writers Association meeting where he was chairing a panel discussion about garden writing. Well, little did I know that these two horticultural gurus would get together a few years later to collaborate on a book called No Guff Vegetable Gardening. And voila, here it is. It’s full of facts and fun, all delivered in a breezy, over-the-garden-fence kinda way. If you’re planning to attend Canada Blooms, be sure to hear them speak on Thursday, March 17 at 11 a.m. in Garden Solutions Room 105. If you can’t make it, check out the how-to videos on the Garden Coaches Chat website and get a no guff start on your veggie garden this year!

So, if you get the chance, pick up one of Theresa’s calendars — it’s a winner!

Theresa tells me her 2011 calendar will be available in September. To pre-order, email her at  theresa_forte@sympatico.ca. The price is $20 each plus taxes,  plus $5 for shipping. if required.

10. Play Checks
My family, friends and most passersby who spy the newspaper on the front porch at 9 a.m. know that I’m not a morning person. So, when I dragged myself out of bed to attend the 8 a.m. keynote speech at the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, I sincerely hoped it would be worthwhile. My hopes were almost dashed when Dr. Lowell Catlett stood up on stage and started talking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - yikes, I thought, did I get out of bed for a college lecture?

Mercifully, Dr. Catlett’s homespun storytelling technique made his speech on the Greening of America (or Canada?) entertaining and the messages he delivered all the more compelling. He used Maslow’s pyramid to show how we’ve gone from needing to make a living to having a lifestyle – all in just three generations. In the middle of the pyramid are the Baby Boomers: “the first mass-educated generation on the planet and the first generation with no conception of retirement.” We’re the generation who wants play checks not pay checks.

So, what does all this mean? It means we have more freedom to pursue our dreams than ever before, and those dreams may lead us to raise chickens in the city, pursue eco-adventures anywhere in the world or move into a retirement home with our cats if that’s what we cherish. For garden writers like me, Catrell’s parting message was: “Do not sell people products and services. Sell them dreams.” Well, how difficult can that be when gardening is really an expression of our personal dreams and aspirations?

The native plant garden at North Carolina Botanical Garden is the closest example I could find to demonstate Weaner's garden design philosophy which relies on plant communities to express the rich beauty of native landscapes.

6. Natural landscapes for the real world

Larry Weaner, a landscape architect based in Glenside, Pennsylviania, opened his talk on “Breaking the Rules” at the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh with a story about how Native Americans were this continent’s first ecologists. Among their sustainable practices was the deliberate division the carex plants growing in meadows so that what the natives took from the plants for weaving and other handicrafts never depleted the source. These First Peoples also burned leaves under oak trees to destroy acorn larvae that would otherwise mature to infest an important food source.

From these two stories, Weaner’s philosophy of natural landscape design unfolded through breathtaking photos of his company’s projects, including meadows and woodlands in country, suburban and city gardens. Based on the idea that plant design should follow the patterns of the landscape and seasonal plant cycles, Weaner uses plants that have adapted to the specific conditions of the site. Simply put, he plants wetlanders in marshy spots and prairie grasses in sunny locations with poor soils. It sounds logical, but how many garden designers are doing this? Not many, I think. And that’s because to be successful, it takes time – often more than five years – to see the results, and it takes the knowledge drawn from many disciplines – from ecology to architecture – to be successful. I hope Weaner is thinking of writing a book, I want to know more about how to create such beautifully natural landscapes.

Pitcher plants and nodding ladies tresses at North Carolina Botanical Garden

Meanwhile, maybe I’ll grow a mini-landscape using a community of plants in a large container – I’ve always loved pitcher plants, and on this trip I discovered Nodding Ladies’ Tresses, which like the same conditions as sarracenias. Hmmm, another project for next year…

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Growing vegetables in the city has become so popular that the University of Guelph has launched The Guelph Centre for Urban Organic Farming. The one hectare market garden located in the northwest corner of the Arboretum offers hands-on, practical experience as part of part of U of G’s major in organic agriculture. Hankerin’ to be an urban farmer? Contact the Department of Plant Agriculture at the University of Guelph.

Frizzle Cochins

Hens are hot. That’s the message I came back with from a recent tour of the gardens of Portland, Oregon. People are blogging about them (see Dirt by Amy Stewart), gardeners are raising them in urban gardens and at one city nursery called Pistils, they’re selling exotic species like Silkens and Frizzle Cochins (these were a tad camera shy). In fact, cluckers are so popular in Portland, you can take part in a Tour de Coop, biking from coop to coop and learning all about these friendly fowl. Although it’s slim pluckings for Toronto residents wishing to raise hens, the web offers plenty of vicarious experiences, including:

• Chicken Cam at Flying Skunk Farm
• City Chicken
• Toronto Chickens

Although smaller than the more prestigious show gardens at Chelsea, the courtyard gardens displayed along the pathways winding through the groves of shady trees in neighbouring Ranelagh Gardens were filled with great ideas for city gardens. Small in scale but big on impact, the courtyard garden designs ranged from traditional cottage garden style to the contemporary neo-Plasticism inspired by Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian.

The success of each depended on building a theme around one “big idea”. This is a concept that I first learned to appreciate after attending a workshop led by the designer of Toronto’s Music Garden, Julie Moir Messervy. Messervy encourages would-be garden designers to think of one “big idea” to define a garden space. Working with this “big idea”, select everything from plants and pathways to pots and garden furniture to build on that idea. Afraid that if you follow this rule, you’ll end up with a garden looking as if it were built by a team of mad decorating doyens that make Martha Stewart and Debbie Travis look restrained? Have no fear – the gardens at Chelsea are proof that the “big idea” concept works.

The “big idea” could be as simple as “A Time for Reflection”, the theme of a garden designed in memory of British gardening personality, Geoff Hamilton. With rescued paving stones, recycled glass pebbles, and even used bathroom mirror tiles, the peaceful courtyard garden reflected Hamilton’s ingenuity in transforming the mundane into a personal paradise.

The “big idea” could be as elaborate as the “Garden of Elements”. Awarded “Best in Show” at Chelsea, the garden incorporated the four elements of fire, earth, air and water in a daring landscape of steamy fire and airborn tennis balls dancing above water plumes and lush greenery. “We have toys in our cars and for our computers, why not in a garden?” asks Catharina Malmberg-Snodgrass, leader of the team that created the Garden of Elements. Grappling with how best to demonstrate the concept of “air” in their garden, a science-minded member of the team came up with the idea of using a Bernoulli Blower. This little gadget creates an air stream that suspends a pair of tennis balls, for example, in mid-air, as if controlled by an invisible juggler – very elementary.

The “big idea” could be as appealing as “A Sensory Garden” – a garden not only of sight, taste, smell, sound and touch, but with a sense of humour as well. From colourful flower borders, tasty herbs, and the scents of lavender, chamomile and cat mint, the Sensory Garden also included a sound chamber of whispering grasses and a bed of furry lambs ears before having the last laugh with a cluster of smiling terra cotta pots.
The “big idea” could be as elegant as the “Tastevin garden”, a garden screened by grape vines enclosing a private, outdoor wine-tasting room. Quiet and secluded, the garden featured plants with names like ‘Claret’ and ‘Pinot Noir’, the corkscrew curls of Juncus effusus ‘Spiralis’ accenting the burgundy-coloured walls – subtle and fruity with a slight floral bouquet.

By now you might have guessed that the big idea behind the “big idea” is unity. When all of the elements of a garden start working together to create a harmonious whole, you have unity. And when you have unity, it’s like winning a Gold Medal at the Chelsea Flower Show.