The beginning of the year, in the dark of winter and muffled by the way-too-much-snow, this little Red Bird designed a display garden entitled “Elements of Life” for landscape contractor client Earthworks Landscape Inc.  The essence of the design of “Elements of Life” honors stone, water, fire, earth, metal, wood with a Pacific NW twist.  This garden began its 5-day bloom yesterday for the 2009 Portland Home & Garden Show. This event and the intoxicating garden shows on tap for the next couple weeks, mark a rite & promise of spring.  A giddiness about blooming, growing, harvesting, creating, combined with rituals of picking flowers, lazing in the sun, walking on warm summer nights hits the air and is multiplied a thousand times over by the throngs of garden lovers that attend these shows.

Red Bird Design's "Elements of Life" for 2009 Portland Home and Garden Show

Do me a favor, run your hands across the “weeping” stone sentinels that mark the portal of the space — I call these rocks the “guardians” – as they are solid, poised, relentless in their watch over peace.  Who couldn’t use a couple of guardians of peace these days, huh? Cozy up a bit while gazing at the fire which “dances” in the rustic pots – the fire bowls. Do they mesmerize? Does the fire heat and captivate? Take a seat nearby the fire bowls on the stone benches – part of the retaining wall – “guardians” laying on their sides, shaded overhead by the canopy of early spring blooming trees. Gotcha now with a little “prospect and refuge” action and you didn’t even know it, did ya?

Stone Forest - the Guardian of Your Peace...

Display garden design is crazy, weird, delightful and an opportunity to express sentiments beyond the typical “marketing” or “sales” realm. Meaning: share goodness, information, inspiration, education, knowing smiles and nods.  (At least this is so for this little Red Bird.)  It is a pleasure to contribute to a sense of hope and the reliable ritual of spring’s renewal. So for those of you able to make the show, stop in and grab a momentary natural distraction (in therapeutic garden design terms). The display sits in the same spot as the 2008 “Restore Outdoors” display garden (C Hall, Space G11).

Come on in for Elements of Life

My belief is that you should feel a sense of sanctuary & inspiration in your own home – your outdoor “rooms”.  I want the unique goodness inherent in your out-of-doors to bloom – as an extension of the goodness inherent in you.

What will we find, tap, uncover that reveals your very own guardians of peace, your own essential elements to live?