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White gardens have a special kind of charm. They feel calm, fresh, and a little bit magical—like a quiet pause in the middle of a busy day. If you’re ...

Few colors have as much presence in the garden as red. It’s the color of passion, love, and adventure—a hue that radiates energy. Even a single red bl...

When you think of gardens, you probably picture soft pastels, bright greens, and sunny colors. But what if you flipped the script and embraced somethi...

Pink is often described as the meeting point of red’s passion and white’s purity...a combination that results in a color symbolizing love, nurture, an...

When we plan a garden, we often think first about flowers—pink, red, orange, white, blue, purple. But what about green? It’s easy to overlook because ...

In our landscape design membership, I get to meet with members in smaller groups...and it’s one of my favorite parts. We talk, connect, and get to kno...

Every garden needs a moment.

A place where your eyes stop, your shoulders drop, and you feel that spark of yes...this is it. That moment of recogniti...

Garden design is more than just choosing beautiful plants...it’s about shaping living communities that grow, shift, and thrive over time. One of the b...

About 15 years ago I accepted an amazing position at a local botanic garden. Being in a beautiful place, surrounded by talented staff and volunteers i...

A garden can feel richer and more grounded when using a natural element such as stone. Some would even say it’s the “bones” of a garden (Spirit of Sto...

Over twenty years ago, while studying landscape architecture, I was asked to develop a concept for my first landscape design. I struggled with this id...

Style is defined as a particular way of doing something.

We all have our own way of doing things….whether it’s choosing our clothes, doing laundry, d...

This is one of the most popular questions I'm asked...what software should I use to draw my landscape plans?  As a landscape design instructor, it's t...

Sometimes I forget to teach the basics about landscape graphics and assume everyone can wield a t-square and triangle to create perfect horizontal and...

Turning a Forgotten Space into a Garden Moment

Every home has them…the skinny strips of land that connect front and back. We give our attention to th...

Though we can cover many complicated things in design, sometimes I like to step back and cover the basics. Two of those things include how to simply r...

I received a lavender scented soap from a dear friend recently and was suddenly taken back to memories of my childhood. Oddly, I didn’t grow up among ...

Can functional structures like sheds be beautiful too? 

As we decorated ours with corn stalks a couple of weeks ago I realized how lucky we were to h...