The Pacific West Coast is where I first found my voice.
It was decades ago that my 19-year old bohemian self flew out alone from Toronto on a one-way ticket to California, armed only with guitar, duffel bag, and a hardcover edition of James Joyce’s Ulysees.
I returned to the West Coast recently to talk about new directions in naturalistic planting design at the invitation of the Bellevue Botanical Garden in Seattle.
The invitation came with an irresistible carrot.
After nearly 40 years of welcoming the world through its gates, the private garden of Piet and Anja Oudolf at Hummelo will close to the public for good at the end of this month.
For all lovers of this most quintessential garden that galvanized an entire movement in naturalistic planting design, the news cuts deep.
Word of its closing has spread like wildfire-weed amongst garden folk and it’s inspired a kind of spontaneous pilgrimage of people visiting Kwekerij Oudolf one last time.
I pursed my lips in quiet victory. At the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. on a Friday morning in April, my trowel and I glided through U.S. Customs to dig into my New Perennial opportunity of the year: a chance to help plant out a Piet Oudolf-designed botanic garden in Delaware.
One week later standing in his future meadow, I had the chance to ask Piet Oudolf himself that most basic of questions: “So Piet, how do you like to plant?”
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.
If my theme for 2018 is Plant, Places, and People, this post focuses on the people part of the equation.
And not just any people. In this case, I’m talking about the greater family of individuals for whom plants and their place in the universe are not only a profession or passion, but a way of life.
They might be landscape architects, planting designers, horticulturists, botanists, nurserymen, or professors. They might be focused on greening our public spaces or working in a more intimate private sphere.
