Lost and Found

 

Its difficult to create a portfolio of your work if you don't RECORD your work!! 

Now that I am ready to transition away from garden maintenance toward design work it is imperative that I create a portfolio to showcase my style, design capabilities and experience.  However, going through my files I find that I have not saved copies of the designs I have done most recently.  

The plan above is for my sister and brother-in-laws new home--it is the first design I have done in color and using proper design techniques.  It was the final assignment for my design course at Naugie Valley. Before this is what my designs typically looked like: 

Most of the time I worked in existing gardens and sometimes, if I had to add, subtract or edit a garden I made a quick hand-drawn map of it.  Those are typically for my own use and are full of scribbles and crossed out plants.  The client doesn't usually ask for a copy.  However I had one client who is a member of the prestigious Garden Club of Hartford who wants to keep track of what she has in her tightly planted, overflowing garden beds.  Again, hand drawn on graph paper with the date, circles of plants constantly be erased and replaced or moved, lists and arrows all around the demarcated bed.

Its my dream of making a professional landscape map for the Silas Robbins House where I worked for many years.  I have taken many pictures of the beds at different points in the season, but drafting is work for the winter.  Right now there is just too much to do in my gardens, especially at the Knox Parks plot. So to that end, I must sign off and get to the garden! ~Happy august everyone 🌼🌼🌼~  

 

Reassessment and clarification of my direction(s)

 Now that I've dabbled in having a farm row and shadowed local grower Derrick Bedward at a couple farmers markets, I am reminded of what my actual passions are, what I am good at, and what I am capable of.  Intensive vegetable farming is NOT it.  I never wanted to be a full time farmer, but I ALWAYS wanted to have a large garden of culinary and medicinal herbs which to share with my community.  Showing people new things, new experiences, especially connecting people to the earth through gardening and using herbs has always been a love of mine. 

Hartford has a rich network of people who want to connect with each other, with the earth and with new knowledge of things that heal and restore. I have a lot to share but also a lot to learn from this community.  I honestly love the people I have met through Knox.  And through my time there, I can see how easy it is for me to network--I am not shy to go up to a local mercado owner to see if he interested in local organically grown produce.  I am not shy to approach people to sell the things that I think make life richer, more vibrant.  When someone isn't familiar with an herb I am growing, I let them smell it, taste it.  Lovage is a great example--no one is familiar with it, but everyone who tries it, buys it.  At the Promise Zone Farmers Market where Derrick sells, I hung some fragrant sweet annie (Artemisia annua) up on the tent and the aroma enchanted people drawing them in and instigating their curiosity. 

That all being said--there isn't a strong market for fresh herbs. I have many friends who are avid herbalists with HUGE herb gardens and fancy apothecary barns, but really never made a living on selling and teaching about herbs.  To be fair, a few have made a lifestyle out of it, but basically they are farmers 'round the clock. Turning the soil, sowing the seeds, harvesting, drying, packaging, going to markets, having storefronts, etc etc etc.  It is a little less intense than vegetable farming, because the herbs are often perennial, and not prone to as many pests, but its still tons of physical work. And then on top of it there's the bookkeeping and administrative work.  Its no nine to five, that's for sure.  No job in horticulture/farming/landscaping really is.

Back to clarifying my direction:  As a friend said, it is better to dig one deep well than many shallow holes.  Mastery comes from a singular focus.  To that end, I have decades of landscape maintenance experience and an artful eye that should be utilized.  That doesn't mean I can't have an herb garden and delight my friends with aromatic dishes with fresh herbs and curative lotions and potions.  It doesn't mean I am not part of that ancient tradition of using plants for health. But it does mean that I have to, as Charles Bukowski said once, "put my ass in the seat" and do the work of landscape design. Become a master at creating beautiful outdoors spaces for people to find pleasure and leisure in.  And maybe, just maybe, I can occasionally get a way with tucking a few herbs in just to pique the curiosity.  

Trying to keep up with my Knox garden plot and all the other fun seasonal outdoor activities!  This year I joined the CT Valley Mycological Society (http://www.cvmsfungi.org/).  This Sunday was my first mushroom foray with them--awesome weather and at an AMAZING location! I never knew about Winding Trails (private park). Check out all the crazy 'shrooms. The grey shaggy one is called Old Man of the Woods (Strobilomyces strobilaceus). Also I didn't know that all Amanitas are not red capped. Also by unbelievable coincidence, my friend was at the pond with her family and I fit in a visit with her and the girls after the mushroom walk.  Such a great day!