Friday, July 9, 2021

The Modern Crevice Garden with Kenton Seth for the HPSO—you don't want to miss this!

I've known Kenton Seth for around six years now. Sadly we've never met in person, but we've carried on a lively back and forth via email, our blogs, Instagram, written letters and a few phone calls. 

Our first exchange came about because I was assigned a story on crevice gardens for the Oregon Association of Nurseries magazine (you can find that article, "Thriving between the cracks" here if you're interested), Kenton was one of the "sources" I was to interview, I think we talked for nearly two hours that day. I was already enamored with crevice garden style, but Kenton's excitement for the subject took my appreciation to an entirely different level. 

We've had a few near misses over the years, chances to meet in person that were off just a little in timing. Back in the spring of 2019 he was up In Port Townsend, Washington, at Far Reaches Farm building a crevice garden, they even had a workshop with an opportunity for hands on learning. Sadly I wasn't able to make the trip up. You can see photos from that project on Kenton's blog here, and the Far Reaches Facebook page here.


In June of 2019 I traveled to Colorado, Kenton's home state and the epicenter of crevice gardening here in the United States. Again, we missed meeting each other but I saw a lot of his work including this fabulous example in the garden of Carol and Randy Shinn in Fort Collins, CO (entire blog post here).

So why all this reflecting on Kenton and crevice gardens? Because he's speaking for the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO) on Tuesday, and thanks to this being an online talk you can attend! 

I've been scheming on getting Kenton up to the Portland area to give a talk or two for years. He's a busy guy though; flying off to Christchurch, New Zealand, to build a crevice garden (here), working on a garden in Vail (here), and taking part in a day of study on crevice gardens for the North American Rock Garden Society (here). So when the HPSO started a series of Zoom (online) Webinars instead of exclusively in-person lectures (due to COVID) I knew we needed to get Kenton lined up as a speaker—and the time has come!



Here's the info from the HPSO website: 

The Modern Crevice Garden” is a look at this increasingly popular and unusual planting style which is by far the best way to grow certain plants, as well as fresh opportunities for artistic design and ecological gardening.  It is appropriate from small spaces to large parks and is universally adaptable to any climate, offering Oregon gardeners a great angle to approach special desert, alpine, and coastal plants. 

Kenton J. Seth is a thirty-something Colorado-based garden designer and hopeless plant nut.  He has a small nursery to grow plants for his gardens, which range from around western Colorado to the US coasts and even a few overseas.  Crevice Gardens dominate his work, including a book in 2022, but he also works with natives, dryland gardens, and recently meadows.  He writes a blog at kentonjseth.blogspot.com and his work is at PaintbrushGardens.com.

The cost of attending the presentation is $5 for HPSO members, $10 for non-members. The program will be recorded and available to all registrants for two weeks following the presentation. The link to register is at the bottom of this page: here

I hope to "see" you there!

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All material © 2009-2021 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

13 comments:

  1. Kenton is pure joy. We corresponded back and forth for a time when I lived in Denver. I really wanted him to create a crevice garden in our back yard. Our small lot had been reborn into a mountain garden by my friend who was a landscaper in the mountains. She was a magician when placing boulders and large rocks to transform our small, flat space into a space that looked like it belonged in the mountains! One space in our backyard was flat and no matter what I planted, I needed more elevation. Crevice gardens were just becoming known to the general population and I knew that was my vision for that space. Unfortunately timing didn't work out for the project, but whenever I think about Kenton and view his work I regret that I couldn't be part of his creative process. He is truly kind and amazing.

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    1. Thanks for sharing this Sheila! I wish I could have seen your Denver garden.

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  2. I enrolled! Thanks for the heads-up. I need to do something with the back slope (especially now that we're facing a 15% reduction in water usage) - maybe crevice gardening could be that something.

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    1. I just read about your water reduction, these are interesting times for sure.

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  3. Not sure I'll be able to make this but will sure try!

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    1. Hope you did... it was a great presentation.

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  4. Will try and catch this. Crevice gardens are huge here. One of my neighbours has an incredible one planted with plants from all over the world. Ironically Seth's and my design company share the same name.

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    1. Well that's just crazy! And I would love to see your neighbor's garden. Or at least photos of it.

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  5. just reading this literally 10 minutes before the program... I just bought 2 palettes of rock and have been thinking about crevice gardening for awhile - serendipity.

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    1. It was so good! I hope you were able to catch it.

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    2. yep - I managed to sneak in at the last minute. It was good practical info but maybe more importantly I came away with a good dose of inspiriation.

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    3. Yes indeed, very inspiring. I'm happy to have the video to rewatch. There were so many great images.

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  6. I loved Kenton's presentation and have been mulling over various ideas on how to create a small crevice area for cactus in my own garden....

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