Tony Spencer is the Canadian writer, photographer, and planting designer known as The New Perennialist. He is recognized and published internationally in the world of naturalistic garden design. Known for this award-winning blog, he also hosts The New Perennialist Talks, a webinar series featuring influential design innovators in the genre. Please note the series is on holiday for 2025 but will return later in 2026.
Tony is currently at work on a new solo book project for Timber Press in the US for a summer 2027 launch. He is also a contributing author for The Contemporary Garden recently published by Phaidon Press.
2025 was a very good year in spite of the world at large. Tony lived delivered the morning keynote as international speaker before nearly 700 people at the prestigious Perennial Plant Conference at Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He also published another feature article in Gardens Illustrated, on a Piet Oudolf project, as well as a major piece for American Gardener from the American Horticulture Society.
In 2024, Tony won his second top Landscape Design Award of Excellence, this time for his Alvar Green Roof project from the US-based Perennial Plant Association (PPA) while in 2023, he was named PPA Garden Media Promoter of the year. He also won the 2024 Media Awards Silver Laurel Medal of Achievement for Social Media presented by Garden Communicators International.
Day to day, Tony is a puckish ringleader for the naturalistic movement with over 100k followers on his various social media channels. He travels extensively to gardens and symposiums in his primary role as a communicator, documenter and sharer of ideas for this movement.
That’s the official stuff. On a personal note, I encourage you to freely explore my blog – now over (yikes!) twelve-years old and loaded with useful and inspiring free content. Start by searching the archives or select a Talk to more deeply explore this most sublime form of new garden expression – attuned to the greater rhythms of all forms of life.
Follow The New Perennialist on Instagram or the Facebook group Dutch Dreams for my most current content.
The New Perennialist: Talks & presentations 2026
My latest presentations on the themes of Wildscaping and naturalistic design have earned serious kudos and rave reviews from all over the garden universe. I aim to create a visual story experience as special as the gardens themselves. I’ve delivered both live and virtual talks to horticultural clubs, symposia, and conferences for international audiences ranging from landscape professionals to everyday home gardeners.
I’m now booking a limited number of live and virtual gigs for 2026 with engagements already scheduled for the US and Canada. Please contact me directly for details about my topics, speaker fees, expectations and avails.
2026 keynotes & seminars:
- Keynote: 2026 Congress of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects, Halifax, Nova Scotia, June 4-6
- Keynote: Drawing on the Land, Berkshire Botanical Garden, Massachusetts, June 13
Recent highlights: International talks
- Speaker: International Landscape Festival, I Maestri del Paesaggio, Bergamo, Italy
- Garden Masterclass: Thursday Chat with Nöel Kingsbury and Annie Guilfoyle, UK
- Guest Seminar: University of Gloucestershire –Department of Landscape Architecture, UK
- Guest Seminar: University of Florence Department of Landscape Architecture, Florence, Italy
- Webinar: Translating the New Perennial Pond Garden, Hokkaido, Japan
USA
- Keynote: 2025 Perennial Plant Conference, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
- Keynote: 2025 Nantucket Garden Festival, Massachusetts
- 2025 Great Lakes Trade Expo, Grand Rapids, Michigan
- Keynote: 2024 Native Plant & Sustainability Conference, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Garden, Pittsburgh, PA
- Keynote: 2023 Impact Conference – Illinois Landscape Contractors Association, Chicago, Illinois
- Keynote: 2023 Planting like Nature: Detroit, Michigan
- Northern Green Expo, Minneapolis, Minnesota
- Winter Symposium: Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, Virginia
- Bellevue Botanical Garden, Bellevue, Washington
- Greater Rochester Perennial Society, New York State
- Michigan Garden Club, Michigan
Canada
- Toronto Master Gardeners, 2025 Technical update, Ontario
- Keynote: 2024 Vancouver Hardy Plant Society Study Day, B.C.
- 2023 Perennial Plant Association Conference, Niagara Falls
- OALA (Ontario Association of Landscape Architects), Toronto, Ontario
- Victoria Horticultural Society Reading Weekend, British Columbia
- The 2022 Planting Symposium: Landscape Ontario
- Landscape Alberta Green Industry Show & Conference
- Alberta Horticultural Association
- Ontario Horticultural Association (various local groups and chapters)
- Canada Blooms, Toronto, Ontario
- Toronto Botanical Garden: presentations and teaching workshops
- The Garden Clubs of Montreal, Westmount and Dorval in Québec
Home garden tours and Open Days 2026
I receive many requests to visit my gardens here at the log house on Elder Hill and experience this kind of wilder-designed garden for themselves.
Please contact me to ask about scheduling a garden group visit in 2026. Or stay tuned to my Instagram account for alerts about occasional small guided tours for garden friends and followers throughout the season.
I also selectively take on professional planting design projects for people keen to create something creative, deep and different in their own private garden worlds.