Season 4 of Garden Spark kicks off in January and brings 3 exciting speakers to design enthusiasts and keen gardeners in the Austin area. Local readers, will you be attending one of the talks this year? I hope so!

Talks are held on Thursday evenings in Northwest Austin from 8 to 9 pm, with refreshments and a meet-and-greet afterward until 9:30 pm. Space is limited, and first dibs on tickets are available to subscribers, so I encourage you to join my email list today. Simply click this link and ask to be added. (And rest assured, I’ll never share or sell your information.)

Here are the 2020 Garden Spark speakers:

SOLD OUT – January 23, 2020 – B. Jane: “The Unified Landscape: How to Apply the 7 Principles of Art and Design to Create Beautiful Outdoor Spaces”

Join B. Jane as she discusses how to harness the 7 principles of art and design to develop gardens and outdoor living spaces that are cohesive and visually striking. Examining examples of successful designs, B. will walk you through how these principles influence the landscape’s feel, flow, and function. She will share exercises in composition that bridge the gap between fine art and landscape design, cementing the concepts of Balance, Contrast, Emphasis, Movement, Pattern, Rhythm, and Unity/Variety so you can confidently take these principles and apply them to your own (or your client’s) property. 

B. will explain how to organize outdoor “rooms,” create interest, move the eye through the landscape, direct traffic (whether foot, bike, or auto), pull people into the outdoors, develop a sense of place, inspire particular vibes or moods, and ensure form doesn’t override function. Whether working with a small patio or several acres, B. will guide you through the implementation of these principles to generate impressively beautiful, functional, and sustainable outdoor spaces.

Biography: B. Jane is the founder and owner of B. Jane Gardens, a full-service landscape design/build group located in Austin, Texas. She brings 22 years of innovative design and expertise with local materials and native/adapted plants to every project, along with an ecologically sound approach to the ever-changing Texas climate. With a strong background in sculpture and landscape architecture, B. appreciates the importance of solving problems creatively, transforming difficult situations into aesthetically pleasing and highly functional assets. Her goal is to provide her clients with unique outdoor living spaces designed to fit their lives.

While this talk has already sold out to subscribers, if you’d like to be put on the wait list for last-minute openings, please email me your request.

April 9, 2020 – Pat Webster: “Art in the Garden: What, Where, Why”

Does art enhance a garden or detract from it? Does it reveal something about the site and enrich the experience of being there? And if not, why use it? Using photographs from private gardens in Canada, the United States, and Europe, Pat Webster looks at important issues about using art outdoors. She starts by considering what constitutes art in a garden – the “what” of her title – and goes on to examine practical questions. How do shape, size, and color relate to the choice of location? What is the impact of different types of material? How do these choices influence our emotional responses to the surroundings? Focusing on high and low art, permanent and ephemeral, she considers how the choices we make express our personal taste and what they reveal about the way we relate to the world around us. As a sculptor and visual artist herself, this talk is one of Pat’s favorites.

Biography: Pat Webster is an experienced gardener, garden writer, and popular speaker, lecturing on art, garden history, and design. She is an artist whose sculptures, photographs, and garden installations explore the landscape and history of Quebec’s Eastern Townships. For the last five years she has also hosted sold-out garden tours to England and Italy. Pat’s articles about gardens and garden design have appeared in numerous publications, including the British garden website, ThinkinGardens, where her most recent piece was about using words in the landscape. In her blog, Site & Insight, she writes about her work at Glen Villa, her garden in Quebec, Canada. She reviews gardens she has visited, tackles questions about garden design, plant selection, and maintenance, and illustrates each article with her own photography.

A native of Richmond, Virginia, Pat holds two honorary doctorates and has served on the board of directors of a variety of not-for-profit organizations. She lives in North Hatley, Quebec, where she is responsible for her family’s 750-acre lakeside property and garden – a place she and her husband are delighted to share with their five children and eleven grandchildren.

September 10, 2020 – Tait Moring: “Water, Limestone, Native Plants: Use 3 Essential Elements of the Hill Country to Design a Garden with a Sense of Place”

Growing up with a “backyard” comprised of thousands of acres of undeveloped land in the hills of West Austin left a lasting impression upon Tait Moring. Features encountered while exploring his home — such as clear water, rugged limestone, and the beautiful, hard-fought flora unique to this part of the world — all became indelibly etched in Tait’s mind and live on through his work done for clients throughout the Texas Hill Country. Join Tait for a tour of examples of how the influence of his beloved native landscape is manifested in gardens large and small, formal and casual — with each garden a reflection of the specific site, a reflection of this region, and with its own sense of place.  

Biography:  A native Austinite and 7^th-generation Texan, landscape architect Tait Moring has been designing and installing residential gardens since 1982. His work has appeared in books and magazines, and he’s designed gardens for many well-known Texans. His own garden, which overlooks a canyon and is regularly visited by bobcats, coyotes, ringtails, and deer, has been open to the public for numerous garden tours and often makes a cameo as a backdrop for commercials, magazine shoots, and music videos.

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Digging Deeper

Come learn about gardening and design at Garden Spark! I organize in-person talks by inspiring designers, landscape architects, authors, and gardeners a few times a year in Austin. These are limited-attendance events that sell out quickly, so join the Garden Spark email list to be notified in advance; simply click this link and ask to be added. Season 8 kicks off in fall 2024. Stay tuned for more info!

All material © 2024 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.