My Life in the Garden

Having run a full service garden center and landscape business (The Growing Concern) in Orono for 16+ years, I now do only the easy bit - landscape design and consulting.

 

​I earned degrees in Plant & Soil Science and Horticulture from Universities in England and America, but it is my lifelong love of gardens and the myriad ways they make our lives better, that fuels my design work.

 

A good landscape design is, at its care, a design that meets the needs of the people who will use the garden. Getting to know how someone wants to use the space, and how they want it to look, is the interesting starting point. 

 

For me, garden design should be is simple, sustainable, life-supporting and result in the creation a space that is a joy to live in - for people, birds, butterflies and bees. We start with working out the use of spaces, and then pay attention - lots of attention - to proper soil preparation. Building healthy soils might be the most satisfying part of gardening. Plant selection - filling in the design with just the right plants - is where the plant geek in me gets to work. I now focus - but not exclusively - on native plants. Why look to alien flora when we have an extraordinary native one to draw on? But a garden is never ‘finished’, and maintaining a grand-motherly consulting role in the development of a garden is an on-going pleasure.

 

​Gardens, landscapes and the outdoors will always be a part of my life and I look forward to sharing my adventures with you on this site.