Plant Talk: Designers In Their Gardens - Annual Garden Issue of Pacific Northwest Features Four Local Gardens

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February 16, 2013

Designers In Their Gardens - Annual Garden Issue of Pacific Northwest Features Four Local Gardens

Tomorrow is the Flower and Garden Show edition of Pacific Northwest magazine in the Seattle Times, featuring four designers own home gardens. (it's on line now).

Kate Farley is the cover girl....and I expect the story of Terry Welch's downsizing when he moved gardens from Woodinville to Vashon will strike a chord with many gardeners.

How do designers choose plants, deal with site and maintenance issues in their own gardens? How do the lessons they learn in others' gardens translate when it comes to their own places?

Barbara Libner designs gorgeous pots of vegetables, yet at home mostly gardens in the ground. Terry Welch works his magic on a smaller scale on Vashon Island..his new garden is simplified, simplified yet still richly atmospheric, from boulder-bounded salt-water
plunge pool to native buffer plantings...and, yes, the bonsai moved with him from Woodinville to Vashon.

This year's Great Plant Picks are unveiled....along with gardens from Ballard to West Seattle, Vashon to Wallingford. This is the one all-garden issue of the year (thank you, Seattle Times....) and was a year in the making....

The gorgeous photos, like this one of Terry's salt water plunge pool, are by Ben Benschneider and Mike Siegel.

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Please!!! Tell us all the name of Terry's online metal building source - or I guarantee you'll be asked continually by curious folk! It is such a great idea (and no doubt there are caveats), but I just spent an hour looking online...thank you!

Posted by: D. West, Seattle | February 17, 2013 at 12:13 PM

I'll ask Terry - and get back to you -
Val

Posted by: valerie Easton | February 17, 2013 at 12:19 PM

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New Book: Petal & Twig

Petal & Twig Made The New York Times!
From Anne Raver's review: "Valerie Easton, a Seattle-based garden writer, discusses the art of growing and arranging cut flowers in “Petal and Twig: Seasonal Bouquets With Blossoms, Branches and Grasses From Your Garden” (Sasquatch Books; $16.95). Written as an informal diary, with photographs of arrangements from her own garden, and tips on cutting and keeping flowers fresh, the book inspires ideas not only on what to grow but on how to combine (or not) those beauties inside. See review here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/29/garden/new-books-on-growing-and-arranging-flowers.html?scp=1&sq=petal%20&%20twig%20anne%20raver&st=cse
The first reviews on the new book are in! From Publisher's Weekly:
"Open your eyes and keep it simple: those are two lessons Easton passes on from her own 40 years in the garden. When selecting and arranging flowers for bouquets, you needn’t spend a bundle buying a bundle of imported flowers.....The result will be unique, local, imaginative, and inexpensive. Color photos throughout illustrate and inspire."

In the News

Montreal Blogger Reviews "A Pattern Garden"
I was so pleased to find that "A Pattern Garden" is still being reviewed...check out Allan Becker's generous review on his Garden Guru blog.. I felt like Allan really understood what I was working towards in that book....he writes...."There is a delightful abstract quality to this publication. In it, the author takes good garden design to a higher, more spiritual level. Instead of discussing the aesthetic and scientific elements of design, as so many traditional garden design books do, she focuses on the role played in garden design by archetypal ideas - a.k.a. patterns - that reference the longings of human beings. These pleasure and comfort-rooted ideas are those that inspire designers to create gardens that are satisfying beyond their beauty." see more at http://allanbecker-gardenguru.squarespace.com/journal/valerie-easton
Planting art
Check out this interview with Val in the Chicago Tribune on using art in the garden...

About

The New Low Maintenance Garden

Reviews Are In....
"Over the years, countless books have espoused a low-maintenance approach to gardening. None have been as engaging, practical, or inspiring as this latest of Easton's contributions to the gardener's bookshelf,"
- Pacific Horticulture magazine, Jan/Feb/Mar 2010
"A handy guide to a garden you can raise without a corresponding increase in your blood pressure..handsome and informative...."
- Metropolitan Home, Dec. 2009
"This book is an invaluable addition to the garden library – destined to be a classic for many years to come."
- Garden Design Online