The most successful schools I’ve worked with have taken a multi-pronged approach to fundraising. This means seeking out individual donors for large and small gifts within their school and wider community, writing grant proposals, and holding events. Events could...
For so many of the school projects I work on, the conundrum is how to care for it once it’s installed/built/planted. Here’s a solution to that question that brings me joy. I’ve been the volunteer chair of the Grounds Committee at my son’s high school for the past 3-½...
Are you looking for a garden filled with life, color, sound, motion and four season beauty? Do you want to avoid weeding, mulching, transplanting, pruning and most of all watering? A water garden may sound like a lot of work, but actually, when it’s properly...
I want to share a little advice. I promise that I”ll connect this to the landcape eventually. I have just finished an extraordinary year of working with a business coach.* I am going to tell you about one of the most powerful things I learned, so you can try it...
There is nothing that feels better than a whole community coming together to create something wonderful. Building the Wetlands Learning Lab brought together families, teachers, Arlington County schools and staff, scouts, a fabulous contractor and more–to build...
A simple hill is a great way to add lots of play value to your yard or playground. Climbing up a hill, even a small hill, gives a child a new and different view of the world. Hills are fun for rolling down… lying on your back and watching the clouds, or...
My garden is a lovely place to be until sometime in June and then they arrive. It just isn’t fun to be outside when the mosquitoes are buzzing and biting, but if you’re like me, you hate the idea of spraying a lot of chemicals. A friend told me about this, and...
Herb spirals are a uniquely beautiful and efficient form for a garden and come from the field of permaculture. Permaculture believes that design should follow natural principles, that nothing should be wasted, and that landscapes should consider human needs. Since...
A friend is nearing the day when she will give birth to her first baby. As she gets closer to her due date, another friend, Susan, and I have been inspired to remember many sweet details about our own experiences of becoming moms a decade or more ago. We recently...
NC. It was a huge and quite thrilling step forward in implementing the design I did for the school in 2010. First, a little history. Many of the projects I work on start with one person’s vision. In Elizabeth City, that person was Linda Ward, Director of Federal...
