There’s no time like the present to talk about the future.
That’s the premise for the next edition of The New Perennialist Talks with very special guest writer Nöel Kingsbury. Our goal is to consider the future of naturalistic garden design and where it might go next.
This feels like a singular opportunity to put out our collective antennae and Nöel is superbly qualified to lead off this discussion.
Our talk in April was a trip to the beach. Because the near mythical Swedish plantsman and designer Peter Korn is pioneering a new way of creating wildly inspired climate-tough gardens and he’s doing it all with sand.
The gardens of Peter Korn are like no other – bursting with a hyper-concentration of esoteric plant species with non-stop flowering from spring till fall. Every plant is neatly fitted to its ecological niche and microhabitat within the greater scheme. From his base at Klinta Trädgård near Malmö, Peter is setting convention on its head with gardens that defy usual practices. They’re tough, beautiful, and pure catmint for plant lovers.
I’m ecstatic to present my latest talk focused on the wilder frontiers of designed landscapes.
We delivered the talk live to an international audience of gardeners and designers in early April. If you missed it, no worries. You can now watch the recording as a Video-on-Demand on Vimeo simply by clicking this link.
I’ve been evolving and delivering versions of this talk to garden lovers over the past two years – and getting rave reviews along the way. It’s an opportunity to share my inside perspective on some of the international designers, gardens and innovations leading this growing movement. I pair this up with a look at my own experimental design projects at my cabin here in Canada.
My Wildscaping Symposium in Naturalistic Planting Design is now officially postponed.
Our new target date is fall 2022. Same place. Same time of year. A new sense of urgency to reconnect with our fellow humans and the natural world.
In the year of the virus almost no one saw coming, spring itself appears to be on hold.
Here at the cabin, rumours of spring are still buried arctic deep in the frozen ground.
I spy distant traces of the season to come: the rust-tipped tendrils of green moss backlit by the setting sun on forest trails; the first blades of exploratory growth in the native Seersucker sedges (Carex plantaginea); Marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris) shyly poking their heads above the muck in the wetlands.
Thankfully, there are bright spots of human warmth amidst the chill. I recently caught up with mid-western prairie whisperer and great garden friend, Roy Diblik who returned to Toronto in March to speak at two local botanical gardens.
