A few months ago I was finalizing an exciting lineup of speakers for the 2021-22 Garden Spark season, as optimism was high for getting back to normal after a year of social distancing and deferred plans. Today the mood is more somber. The pandemic is clearly not done with us, and once again we weigh the risks of each outing.

That said, Garden Spark is currently scheduled to go on, albeit with extra safety measures in place. (See note about COVID safety below.) And I’m delighted to announce the lineup for the 5^th season. You’ll notice more speakers – six! – and a variety of engaging topics presented by design thinkers from Austin and beyond. Talks will be held outdoors, weather permitting, at a terrific new venue at Barton Springs Nursery, on Thursday evenings after dark; exact times TBD based on sunset. Mark your calendar for the following dates, and make plans to attend if you’re able.

Note: Tickets must be purchased in advance, and you must be a Garden Spark subscriber to receive email notification of ticket sales. So subscribe today! Simply click this link and ask to be added.

September 23 – 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.

Speaker Bio: 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.

October 28 – Loree Bohl: “Garden Fearlessly: Inspiration for Creating a Garden You’ll Love, or Reinventing the One You’ve Got”

If your garden doesn’t bring you joy, what’s the point? It sounds so simple, but sometimes we forget that pleasing ourselves is reason enough to do something. Thankfully our gardens are not static; we can reinvent them to suit our ever-changing needs and desires. In this example-rich talk Loree will share ideas for how you can go about creating a garden you love. She’ll share photos from her own Portland, Oregon, garden, as well as others from her garden travels. You’ll be inspired to see your garden through new eyes, take risks in garden design, and treat gardening as an adventure.

Speaker Bio: Loree is the creative force behind the popular blog danger garden, where she shares her love for agaves, cactus, and all things spiky—as well as a fondness for ferns and a good patch of moss. Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Loree ranks garden travel high on her list of leisure pursuits as she enjoys exploring other regional gardening styles, how climates influence gardeners’ plant choices, and how those plants are grown. Loree is a firm believer that there is always room for one more plant.

Loree’s first book, Fearless Gardening: Be Bold, Break the Rules, Grow What You Love, was published in early 2021. Loree has written for magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Gardening, and Pacific Horticulture. Her home garden and design projects have appeared in magazines including Sunset and Old House Journal and in Pam Penick’s books Lawn Gone! and The Water-Saving Garden. Her garden is also featured in the recently released book Private Gardens of the Pacific Northwest by Brian Coleman. Sharing her passion for plants and garden design is a driving force behind everything Loree does.

January 27 – Amy Hovis: “Creating Your Special Place in This World: Strategies for Making an Outdoor Sanctuary in an Era of Uncertainty”

As we witness the effects of climate change, rapid urban development, and the uncertainty of a pandemic, it has become vital to rethink our urban landscape and embrace and protect our personal green spaces as sanctuaries for ourselves and nature. Amy will share how she works with clients to create unique places. She suggests simple yet surprisingly wonderful ways to effect change through landscape design. While offering strategies for creating outdoor spaces that elevate our daily experience, she focuses on the concept of creating lifelong memories in touch with nature.

Speaker Bio: Amy Hovis is a multidisciplinary designer focused on creating biodiverse and sustainable landscapes that elevate the daily experience while bringing humankind closer to nature. She is the principal of Eden, an award-winning landscape design + build studio in Austin specializing in commercial and residential landscapes that emphasize water-wise, native, and adapted plants, and known for creating dramatic impact by integrating well-designed hardscape and stunning native planting. She is also one of the owners of Barton Springs Nursery, offering one of the best selections of native plants in Texas and the only nursery in Austin that grows its own native and adapted plants on site. 

March 3 – Colleen Jamison: “Scaling Back Beautifully: How to Design an Easier-to-Maintain Garden”

Is it possible to transition from a resplendent English-style garden, complete with meandering paths, waterfalls, and every plant you ever wanted to try, to a lovely, simple garden that can be maintained by a non-gardener? That is, is it possible without feeling a stinging sense of loss and deprivation? Having survived this transition, Colleen will share how to create a beautiful space that can bring joy and leisure, year-round interest, and natural habitat for wildlife. Using foundational design principles combined with 30 years of experience as a Central Texas gardener, Colleen will demonstrate in a step-by-step fashion how this can be accomplished, including critical keys for success.

Speaker Bio: Colleen’s gardens have been host to two Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center garden tours, a Garden Bloggers Fling tour, a Central Texas Gardener episode, and one very special visit from a local Girl Scout Troop. When she ran out of room in her own garden, she created one in the 3,800 square-foot median along her street. As she watched people linger in the median, enjoying their visit, she realized her real passion was creating spaces that allowed more sharing and less tending. Along the way, some tough lessons were learned about the perceived value of lush gardens, long-term maintenance, and her own challenges with stepping back and letting go. Colleen is a native-plant-driven designer who loves helping people in their gardens.

April 7 – Patterson 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.

Speaker Bio: 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.

May 5 – Jennifer Jewell: “Cultivating Place: How a Place-Based Garden Culture of Care Strengthens Places and Their People”

Jennifer will explore the philosophy of her Cultivating Place podcast: that gardens and gardeners are powerful agents for positive change, helping to address challenges as wide ranging as climate change, resource use, habitat and biodiversity loss, cultural polarization/marginalization, and individual and communal health and being. Using photos from her new book, Under Western Skies, she’ll illustrate these ideas by sharing innovative gardens that celebrate western landscapes, including the landscape of Texas.

Speaker Bio: Jennifer Jewell hosts the national award-winning weekly public radio program and podcast Cultivating Place: Conversations on Natural History and the Human Impulse to Garden. She is the author of award-winning The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants and Under Western Skies: Visionary Gardens from the Rockies to the Pacific Coast. Her greatest passion is elevating the way we think and talk about gardening, the empowerment of gardeners, and the possibility inherent in the intersections between our places, our cultures, and our gardens.

COVID Safety

Garden Spark will have COVID safety measures in place through 2021 (at the least) because of the ongoing pandemic. These will be detailed for subscribers when ticket sales open for each talk.

How to Attend

Subscribe to Garden Spark for first dibs on tickets! Simply click this link and ask to be added.

Sponsor Thank-You

A huge thanks to Barton Springs Nursery for sponsoring Garden Spark and providing a new venue on their beautiful grounds, with plenty of parking, space to spread out, and perhaps even a pre-talk shopping opportunity!

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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.