The Art of Gardening is an ancient practice. And has had great religious and social significance. It seems to have fallen recently into two categories: The art of the dilettante who creates something that is an extension of architecture and the landscaper, the guy who measures everything by the foot and uses the line as the bases for planting. Obviously there is every possibility in between. In the public domain it is not unheard of that the landscaper or gardener will donate their time to create plantings. Could you imagine an architect or engineer donate their time to build a museum. Gardening has fallen into a profession of low esteem. It is slowly being resurrected as one of the basic arts in the social fabric but we have along way to go. I would like to give some basic ideas as to how gardening can be reintegrated into the foundation of our cities and landscape. There are many fields of study that a gardener should participate in: horticulture, geology, traveling, geography, design, and a healthy love of the natural world.

When i design a garden i want the geology and the geography and the natural environment to be very apparent. I am not interested in building an Arizona cactus garden in Austin or an East coast camelia and magnolia garden. That doesn't mean i won't use a camelia or magnolia, it is just that it will be done so that they reflect an environment that might support camelias and magnolias. If one goes to Thailand one sees magnolias with in a limestone geological formation much similar to Austin Texas. This is where traveling helps us with desigh issues. Normally a design problem might be handeled with a heavy handed architectural solution whereas many gardening problems have already been addressed somewhere else. a classic example for our region

The garden as room.
The garden as view and repose.