Dargan Landscape Architects

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Appearances, Lectures and Shows

How Do I Create a Timeless Landscape Design for my Home? Mary Palmer Dargan Explains at Williamsburg Garden Festival, Feb. 2-4

There are typically two kinds of landscapes: those that observe the trends of the time and those that are designed timelessly so they remain functional and beautiful for decade after decade. Here at Dargan Landscape Architects, we design the latter. Our work, including the release of our popular book, Timeless Landscape Design, is dedicated to helping homeowners and businesses design landscapes that “fit like a glove” and improve the health of the property and surrounding community.

timeless-design
Source: Symposium 2015

Learn the Art of Timeless Landscape Design with Mary Palmer Dargan at Williamsburg Garden Festival

As a result of my approach to sustainable landscape architecture, I have the privilege of traveling all over the country and speaking about my passion for healing the planet one garden at a time. Up next, I’m honored to be a keynote speaker at the Williamsburg Garden Festival and Symposium, sponsored by the Garden Club of Virginia. The event takes place February 2 – 4, 2015 at the Williamsburg Lodge at Colonial Williamsburg.

Attending this special event will place you in one of the nation’s most interesting locations, loaded with history and artifacts as well as celebrated locations for shopping and dining. Plus, you’ll be able to hear other inspiring and renowned speakers ranging from experts on natural health and healing remedies to chefs, landscape historians, and more.

My portion of the symposium will focus on how you can create a home landscape design that works in the current moment and can be easily evolved to suit your future needs. I draw on more than 40 years experience as a botanist, professor and author – as well as my day job, professional landscape architecture and design.

I will cover a range of topics including:

  • How to heal your soil, using healthful principles that promote – rather than inhibit – the essential flora, fauna and fungi required to grow a sustainable and low-maintenance landscape.
  • The importance of considering your landscape additions and subtractions in terms of how they affect your home, your neighbors, the community and the planet.
  • Keeping a long-view so your landscape design can evolve with the needs and wants of your household.

 

For more information on this event, you can find additional information at the Williamsburg Lodge at Colonial Williamsburg site for the Garden Club of Virginia. Contact Dargan Landscape Architects for all your landscape and gardening needs.

 

How to Support Sustainable Gardening? Join Forces with the Highlands Biological Station

I have dedicated the bulk of my life to sustainable gardening in one form or another. My passion for plants inspired me to pursue – and obtain – a degree in botany from the University of Tennessee in the 1970s. My courses and educational contacts led me to a job at the Tennessee Botanical Gardens, which resulted in the receipt of a prestigious award for propagating a special species of Echinacea (Echinacea Tennesseensis). Thus began my passionate career as a botanist and landscape architect, or – as I like to say – my lifelong career as “a real plant geek.”

Highlands-Biological-Station
Source: Highlands Biological Station

Support Sustainable Living and Gardening at Highlands Biological Station

Part of any landscape architect’s job is educating clients through the process. I have worked as an expert educator, including a professorship at Clemson University where I taught landscape architecture and planning. I continue to travel the country speaking and lecturing for various plant- and landscape-related organizations. In addition to running a successful landscape architecture firm in Atlanta with my life partner, Hugh Dargan, I also lead and represent four states  – Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and Georgia – in conservation and national affairs legislation for the National Garden Club of America.

Through all of these life experiences, I have maintained a very close and hands-on relationship with the Highlands Biological Station, and now you have an opportunity to personally support the long-view mission of this unique enterprise. The goal is to transform the Highlands Biological Station into a more interactive learning grounds for children and adults. The final vision includes enthusiastic children, students, and groups making their way from the botanical gardens, through the southern Appalachian swamp, back to the classrooms at the new dam and then up to an event facility overlooking the lake where they can apply the micro-aspects of what they have learned to the greater, global picture.

Do you share Dargan Landscape’s goal of saving the planet one garden at a time? Support our collective dream of sustainable living and gardening at Highlands Biological Station by visiting, donating, or volunteering. Contact Highlands Biological Station or Dargan Landscapes to learn more.

 

Design Lifelong Landscapes: A Home Environment Workshop with Mary Palmer Dargan

Source: Mary Palmer Dargan
Source: Mary Palmer Dargan

Join Hugh & Mary Palmer Dargan, RLA, APLD for the Seattle, Washington Association of Professional Landscape Designers ( NOT landscap”ers”)  workshop being held on January 26, 2015 from 9 a.m.- 3p.m. The workshop is scheduled at the Center for Urban Horticulture, UW. An advanced course tailored to students with pending licenses, “Design Lifelong Landscapes: A Home Environment Workshop with Mary Palmer Dargan” will be an excellent addition to your portfolio. Homeowners with landscape designing interests are welcome!

As a landscape architect, author, professor, lecturer, and entrepreneur, Mary Palmer Dargan promises to inspire new horizons for your clients’ landscape designs. We will learn  Learn to merge the principles of fine art and landscape design with the functional beauty of permaculture techniques to create nourishing environments where your clients’ lifestyles can flourish.

Based on the relationship between humans and nature, permaculture is a form of ecological design meant to create sustainable architecture and self-sustaining, regenerative environments. Founded in the late 1970s, permaculture has grown into a thriving world-wide movement over the past 30 years. Through lectures and practical exercises, we will learn to design lifelong landscapes with Mary Palmer Dargan as she shares some of her vast wealth of knowledge with us.

Time to Take your Garden to School? Landscape Design Workshop Intensive in Seattle Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) Presents Landscape Architect, Mary Palmer Dargan at the Center for Urban Horticulture

Source: Mary Palmer Dargan
Source: Mary Palmer Dargan

Does your garden need a tune-up? Would you like to learn landscape design tips from a master with 40 years in the landscape design trenches? When the APLD contacted me about offering this workshop, it presented the perfect opportunity to share how to  avoid the common landscape design mistakes and pitfalls. We’ll be taking our experiences with us on the road for a presentation at the APLDWA Annual Design Symposium.

Join Dargan Landscape Architectects at the APLDWA Annual Design Symposium in Seattle ( open to both homeowners and landscape designers)

On January 26th, Mary Palmer Dargan and her life/ business partner, Hugh Dargan, will host a presentation, lecture, and  a landscape design workshop intensive at the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle, Washington. The event is designed to help landscape professionals ( and landscape designing homeowners) avoid the common pitfalls that lead to “embarrassingly dysfunctional, over-budget & unsustainable client projects.”

The three secrets they’ll share are designed to help attendees design landscapes that are, in the words of ancient Roman author, architect, and civil engineer, Vitruvius, “firmitas, utilitas, venustas.” That’s, “solid, useful, beautiful,” for those of you who aren’t up on your Latin. These three secrets involve:

  1. Applying the tenets of a four-part master plan, so the project is not only aesthetically pleasing but is functional such that its purpose will be realized year after year.

  2. Implementing an innovative system of “layers,” which will help you organize and utilize site improvements.

  3. Using lifelong landscape design principles to create and guide a sustainable philosophy.

Registrants will receive a workbook (register early as we can’t guarantee workbooks for late-registrants) and are encouraged to bring paper copies of a survey at 1/8-inch of front or rear of project, an aerial photograph (Google Earth is great for those) and three photographs at letter size.

The cost is $150 for members, $200 for non-members, and $100 for students. The cost includes the workbook and an on-site lunch. Late registration (after 1/12/2015) is $250. Online registration will open soon at www.apldwa.org/events-and-news. You can also contact us here at Dargan for more information.