Hot Tubbing with Jeffrey Gordon Smith?

Aside from my new Design Workshop column in Fine Gardening cartridge and this web log , I write about garden for a few Southern California magazine and blog . Feeling a need to exposit my horizons beyond my Santa Barbara borders , I planned a road trip to the San Luis Obispo surface area ( SLO ) , about 100 miles north of my home .

I studied landscape painting architecture at Cal Poly SLO in the eighty , but have n’t really keep up with the area ’s garden pattern scene , so I asked everyone I knew for advice . Just about everybody allege , “ You ’ve GOT to meet Jeffrey Gordon Smith and see his design . ”

Smith ( a landscape designer ground in the pocket-sized , beachside township of Los Osos , and perform beautiful projects from the Bay Area to the southernmost reaches of the Golden State ) and I hammered out the item for a sojourn , but a super inundation in December wipe out my plans . after , as I peruse the political platform at the SF Flower and Garden Show , I noticed that Jeffrey was not only going to be speak about his raw script ( Jeffrey Gordon Smith Landscape Architecture ) , but also constructing an exhibit garden at the show .

I think he ’d be an interesting discipline for a pre - show blog position , and phoned him for an interview to find out what visitors to the SFFGS might get inspirational . Our conversation kept detouring into all kinds of subject , and when I father off the phone 45 minutes later on , I still was n’t sure what I ’d compose about . I had asked all the correct interrogation : “ What ’s your big idea ? ” “ How would they be inspired for their own gardens ? ”

I do know one thing : If you natter his garden at show , you ’re run low to have a mythic time and take the air away with a vast smile on your face . “ I ’m all about having fun . Why do it if it ai n’t fun ? ”

Before we get to the fun stuff , a bit of setting : Smith ’s designing are not about what he call “ the flavor of the month , ” kiddingly coining the recording label “ Muscany ” ( Morocco meets Tuscany ) . “ I do n’t cerebrate garden interior designer should be pushing the past times on garden , ” referring to the typical cooky - cutter gimmicks some graphic designer reach for , regardless of the circumstance .

His access is about regionalism , creating garden that search like they belong in the place where they reside . His website sum it up : “ Our designs endeavor to marry architecture to the site , and to uprise a cohesive landscape design that look and feels as though it belongs in the overall context of its environs . ”

Spend time atSmith ’s site galleryand you ’ll find evidence of how his philosophical system amount to life-time , make elegant , naturalistic spaces for his node , using forms that mimic the surrounding environment .

But that ’s not all he has in his traveling bag of trick . There ’s a play - loving side that spill out when Smith and his design studio crew get vagabond . A few years ago , he was ask round to bring forth a impermanent garden installation for theSan Luis Obispo Botanical Garden . “ They said , ‘ Give us something sustainable ’ , so I decide to do some ‘ upcycling ’ , using fabric that are already out there , like bit metal and industrial parts that had already serve their purpose . ”

He gather up crowing , black violent storm - drain pipes , bright colorful type O - ring fossil oil gasket and rusted pipe . “ Recycling imply breaking stuff back down , and that takes a lot of energy . Upcycling just give it a second live without a lot of campaign . ”

The garden was a huge smasher , so Jeffrey freshened it up and there it still sits .

So when the San Francisco show came around , he thought , “ The third prison term ’s the charm ” , and figure out how to amplify the idea and bring in a few more playful features . His garden is style Pi universal gas constant Squared , consult to the dominant circle theme of the pipe , rings and metal forms that repeat in the garden . Plant stuff will be restrict , but bold , using grasses and sculptural material body of succulents , like tree aloe .

I ’m most unrestrained about get word theDutchTub , a shabu roughage polyester contrivance that looks like an escapee from Disneyland ’s Tea - cup drive . ( Jeffrey casually hinted that there might be a second tub set up somewhere , guerilla - fashion , near the show , so bring your bathing lawsuit . )

Another highlighting is theKomodo Kamandooutdoor refractory grillroom , a employment of artistic production what will make you rethink your next backyard cookout . ( Their website has an aptly named page titled Food Porn . )

If you ca n’t make it to the shindig , here ’s the next best thing : avideo simulationof the garden at his website .

If you ’re at the show on Thursday , start by taking in Pi r Squared , then fascinate myDesign Like A Proseminar at 10:45 , but leave elbow room on your schedule to enjoy Jeffrey ’s lecture , “ Regionalism : Design Inspired by the Spirit of the Place , ” at twelve noon .

So , are you coming to the show ? It ’ll be more fun than a barrel of violent storm debilitate pipes in a rapturously warm hot tub . See you there .

San Francisco Flower and Garden Showwebsite …

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