and consulting is where I can make a difference, and because I have been in the industry so long, I can recommend different contractors to do different things. For example, I know some fantastic stone contractors, but they might not be as good at other areas. Someone might only want to pay to have some of the hard structures done, so I can point them in the right direction of people I have worked with. There are some fabulous people in this city! It’s a really great industry, I love it, but it is a very short industry here in Canada.
They tease me here about how I do all my designs to travel to see gardens… And seriously I travel the world to see gardens! I have just come back from Australia.
Casa London: What were you looking at there? Can anything grow in Australia?
Denise: The Botanical Gardens, they are amazing! I have come back with a totally different look at things. They do a lot more work with stone, and there’s a lot more Asian inspired gardens. They are tougher plants – it’s a different environment altogether.
I also had the opportunity to go to Ireland with the lush green. In fact, there is a lot of the Australian coast that reminds me of Ireland, with that rugged rocky coast.
I am working on a design for a garden in Australia, it’s kind of up in the air at the moment. Right now, we are just playing around with some ideas.
Casa London: Where do you stand on “Green Gardening”?
Denise: I think we need to be environmentally friendly, and I think we need to be cautious of what we do with regards to green gardening. It’s been 10 years since they banned pesticides, and I see the positives and the negatives, but I like more of the positives. But then people still bring it in from the U.S.
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