gardenriots
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Jul 30, 2014 (12 years) |
7 years | 1 | 5 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Jul 30, 2014 (12 years)
- Last activity
- 7 years
- Topics created
- 1
- Replies created
- 5
Bio
I'm a horticulturist with 35 years experience primarily in the maintenance and management of public landscapes and gardens, including, renovation, construction, planting design, doing horticultural reviews of capital projects and creating and implementing maintenance plans that recognize the dynamic nature of these places. I have a strong interest in sustainable/ xeric landscapes and view the landscape as an opportunity to create places of beauty in an all too often utilitarian urban world while at the same time using them as a teaching tool for the public and peers. I recently retired from Portland Parks and Recreation where I was responsible for many of our downtown landscapes for 16 years.
I have a degree in ornamental horticulture and a life long interest in science, beginning when I was ten or eleven with astronomy. I became fascinated by physics and the paradoxes and conundrums theory left us with in the '60's. I moved on from this to an avid interest in nature, biology and the living world around me in Central Oregon. I did not find a mentor so instead spent many hours by myself exploring and wondering and became largely self-taught, a pattern that has continued through my adulthood. Some of my postings are a direct result of my curiosity and are a result of my learning style, submersing myself in a topic that interests me, generally related to a plant I have grown and then building a fuller understanding of what is going on. Topics as diverse as general evolution to quantum biology and learning the biogeography of regions from which my plants come are continuously fascinating to me. These interests can become consuming 'rabbit holes' for me taking me places my wife does not understand. The world to me is a beautiful, fascinating place filled with puzzles to be understood and thereby more fully appreciated.