Garden Designer Dan Pearson Explains Spirit: Garden Inspiration

The Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden recently held a half-day symposium featuring English garden designer, Dan Pearson. Dan showed photographs from his travels and his book, Spirit: Garden Inspiration and talked about his design philosophy. We asked Dan to give us an overview of his lecture in front of a large photomural of one of his designs, Home Farm. This photomural is part of the Garden’s exhibition, In Search of Paradise: Great Gardens of the World, currently on display in the Regenstein Center. To register for upcoming classes, visit chicagobotanic.org/school.

Make a Cement Trough Container

English trough containers are stone-like garden containers you can make at home from common materials. Here, Hannah Rohn and Heather Sherwood show us how to make a garden container from Portland cement, peat moss, perlite and water. These troughs are great for shallow-rooted hardy perennials, dwarf alpines, herbs or annuals. Examples of these versatile troughs can be seen in the English Walled Garden and Heritage Garden.

Nancy Clifton teaches trough-making and other garden workshops through the Joseph Regenstein, Jr. School of the Chicago Botanic Garden. Look for her classes online and in the catalogs. For registration information, visit www.chicagobotanic.org/school

Download detailed instructions on another technique for making English garden troughs here:
http://www.chicagobotanic.org/downloads/trough/cbg_trough.pdf.