What is landscape Architecture? Heather Ring - Wayward Plants and final note

Heather Ring has worked with some great firms such as Martha Schwartz, Gustafson Porter and studying under James corner. Her question set the tone for her talk which was “What is a garden and how long does a garden need to exist before being a garden?” Heather runs a company called Wayward Plants, a unique site that allows the exchange and even adoption of plants. Her ideals go around the continual protection of plants and preserving every single one. She has decided to work at this small scale becayse she felt that she has done nothing but work is such large scales that the finer details go missing. Her way of looking at things in smaller detail greatly appeal to my type of thinking. I enjoy designing aspace then looking at the details that make the space.

She spoke about “guerrilla planting” a new word for me which basically means the planting of a garden without permission. Which seems quite exciting the idea of finding a space and create a natural order. Then I remembered last year I visited a place near Vauxhall Bridge where the residents of an area had decided to take out paving slabs that made the walkway and start planting plants.



Projects that she has been involved in are the Union Street Orchard which is created by using recycled materials and has its own eco-pod. There are number of people who live on site to maintain it.

She also spoke about algae which is an interesting plant that has the potential to create bio-fuel and can also be edible.

Her website is:

http://www.waywardplants.org/


After all these great talks it’s only natural that I start questioning what I think Landscape Architecture is. I would love to say something short and witty that describes everything in one go, sadly I don’t think I’m anywhere near as accomplished enough to do that. Instead I’ll just say what I think which is; Landscape Architecture is about knowing what you got to its very core and creating a space that not only has the ability to enhance it but listens to its surroundings and wants to live not just admired for a while.