W. Gary Smith
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Overview
1101 East 6th Street Austin, Texas 78702One of North America’s leading landscape designers, W. Gary Smith specializes in botanical gardens and arboretums, as well as public art installations and private gardens, often weaving together local ecological and cultural themes.
w: W. Gary Smith Design website
w: From Art to Landscape: Unleashing Creativity in Garden
Design, by W. Gary Smith
e: view email sdirks@wgarysmithdesign.com
Description
With more than 25 years in public garden design and master planning, W. Gary Smith has distinguished himself as a landscape architect whose work celebrates plants and the connections they offer between people and nature. Working almost exclusively in botanic gardens and arboreta, he strives to find ecologically sustainable ways of making gardens. He is the 2011 recipient of the American Horticultural Society’s (AHS) Landscape Design Award, and his book From Art to Landscape: Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design received a 2011 AHS Garden Book of the Year.
He received the national Award of Distinction from the Association of Professional Landscape Designers for his work on Enchanted Woods at Winterthur Museum & Country Estate in Delaware and for Peirce’s Woods at Longwood Gardens and the Stopford Family Meadow Maze at Tyler Arboretum, both in Pennsylvania. Peirce’s Woods also received a Design Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects. His recent work includes the new Santa Fe Botanical Garden, the Gardens Master Plan and the Children’s Garden at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas, the Discovery Garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the Therapeutic Garden at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Alabama.
Topics
Gary gives dynamic talks on the following topics:
Nature’s Patterns in Garden Design
Art and Landscape
Children’s Gardens
Native Plant Garden Design
He has recently appeared at:
The Botanic Garden of Smith College, Northampton, MA
Phipps Garden Center, Pittsburgh PA (Native Plant and Sustainability Conference)
Mid-Atlantic Horticulture Short Course, Virginia Beach, VA
Garden Club of America Annual Meeting
Garden Conservancy Annual Garden Design Seminar, San Francisco
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society
Winterthur Museum and Country Estate
American Society of Landscape Archtiects Annual Meeting
Locations
Austin, TX 78702
Photo Gallery
Audience Reviews
Simply Outstanding!
Valann Budischak from Newark, Delaware - 10/12/2011 07:40:43
Gary “wowed” the University of Delaware Botanic Garden’s first sellout audience at his September 20th lecture entitled, “Unleashing Creativity in the Native Garden”. His energy, enthusiasm, plant knowledge and images are second to none. Gary’s book From Art to Landscape was in great demand at the close of the evening. The evening couldn’t have been better. Gary’s the best!
Talk for the Horticultural Society of Maryland
Jennifer Forrence from Baltimore, MD - 09/18/2011 17:48:20
What a delightful talk--so many folks, especially the professional designers, landscape architects, and the most certified plant geeks, came up after and said 'that was REALLY good'. Gary was a delight to work with as well--I recommend him highly!
What a superb lecture!
Melissa Cullina from Boothbay, Maine - 08/22/2011 10:25:50
Gary's lecture on August 10 at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, "From Art to Landscape -Unleashing Creativity in Garden Design" was really outstanding. Everyone here is now a fan of Gary's!
