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Just as important as the scale of plantings is taking the measure of her clients, says Senga Lindsay. "You have to be a bit of a detective." Every site visit becomes a search for clues: what colours clients favour, how they use their outdoor space. "It comes down to the art of listening," says Lindsay, who gained in-depth plant knowledge during three years
at the Niagara Park School of Horticulture and earning a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the University of Guelph.
Take one recent client: a film producer and world traveller who had a love of gardens but no definitive vision for his own on a narrow West Vancouver lot. The solution they conceived-Pacific West meets Far East-is a Lindsay signature. She’s also known for her devotion to easy-maintenance "bomb-proof" plants, statuesque native grasses and, says judge Ron Rule, her "sincere and consistent" devotion to environmental concerns-particularly, as fellow judge Jim Hole points out, xeriscaping, or low-irrigation design.
Her most challenging project has been the yard of her North Vancouver home, a post-and-beam by Thompson, Berick and Pratt. Here she plays plant colours (burgundy to gold to blue-Provence in miniature) against recurring materials to define "rooms" suited to the ecology, her entertaining habits and her chef husband’s food gardens. Lindsay opens her home for a public tour this month (see sengadesigns.com for September 13 event details), and the lesson for homeowners is simple: everything needs a little nurturing. wl
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Judges
Jim Hole, of Hole’s Greenhouses & Gardens in St. Albert, Alberta, writes books, newspaper columns, newsletters (enjoygardening.com) and for the magazine Enjoy Gardening. He can be heard regularly on CBC radio and seen weekly during the growing season on City TV’s Your City and Breakfast Television. He’s currently relocating the company to an environmentally sensitive facility that’s the first of its kind in North America.
Ron Rule studied landscape architecture at the University of Oregon and has operated his own design practice, specializing in estate gardens, in Vancouver for more than 30 years. He is the founder and director of the certificate in Garden Design program at UBC and a columnist for Gardenwise. He also leads historical garden tours to Europe and lectures regularly to garden groups throughout the Pacific Northwest.
ONE TO WATCH
Shaun Ford opened a Calgary showroom this year, putting his custom outdoor design work in the spotlight. We loved the luxe Indonesian mahogany surround he added around a sleek spa tub at a serenely remote Alberta lakefront home. And the heated patio he installed as part of an extensive landscape overhaul of a Calgary home is an inspired nod to outdoor living.
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