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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