THE MAKERS’ MEADOW

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

We built the Makers’ Meadow to demonstrate the intrinsic power of naturalistic landscapes that prioritize natural materials, burst with life and creative musings, and thrive in a changing climate. Our garden seeks to embolden practical and creative solutions to some of the most pertinent ecological issues facing the future of our industry. It is our hope that this garden inspires future landscapes that are both beautiful AND beneficial. The Maker's’ Meadow (and our work at large) is steeped in these guiding principles: 

  • Create lush and unique climate-adapted planting combinations.

  • Illuminate the beauty and ecological value of the four season meadow with a focus on its role in supporting pollinator habitat.

  • Accentuate the reciprocal relationship between gardens and our chosen forms of botanical artistry: floral design and herbalism.

  • Showcase the power of prioritizing natural materials in landscape design and construction.  

Our garden is nestled in the valley of a pine forest just as it transitions to meadow, near a rural mountain town in northern California. This is the wildcrafted and cultivated space of herbalists, gardeners, and floral designers who use this space for inspiration, cultivation, and artist creation. The Makers' Studio is a place for contemplation, creativity, and communing with nature’s creations. This humble structure is a place to preserve plants for herbal tinctures and teas, create inspiring floral designs, or rest after a long day in the garden. Their commitment to sustainability is demonstrated in their planting design, building techniques, floral design style, and mode of transportation: bicycle. Their relationship with and respect for nature informs all that they do! 

We chose this meadow setting to initiate a dialogue around the shifts taking place in our region and industry as a result of a changing climate. The recent USDA hardiness zone change in our region (8b → 9a), is an indicator of a drier and warmer future for the Pacific Northwest.  These changes represent an opportune moment for designers and homeowners alike to embrace landscapes that are adapted to our changing climate, especially prioritizing drought tolerant and low water planting designs, often found in the meadowscape. The Makers’ Meadow encourages people to embrace the value of the four season meadow, especially in the often overlooked shoulder season where the winter meadow transitions to spring.  

OUR DESIGN


Collaborative design by the Lacewing team:

Britt Willey, Tom Jamieson, Audrey Crews,
Braden Begg, Ben Schultz, Chris Miller,
Tony Hlavaty, and Hallie Escola

To reach our goals for the Makers’ Meadow, we crafted a plant list that features over 50% native plants. We anchored our design with a mix of trees that provide ecological and medicinal value: the “nativar” Pinus f. ‘Vanderwolf,’ the unique deciduous conifer Metasequoia g. ‘Amber Glow,’ the cheery cherry Cornus m. ‘Golden Glory,’ and the radiant Hamamelis x i. ‘Arnold Promise.’ The meadow features a showcase of beautiful Arctostaphylos (Manzanita) varieties: ‘Austin Griffins,’ ‘Howard McMinn,’ and ‘Pacific Mist.’  Manzanitas are a valuable landscape specimen for the PNW that tick all the boxes of our garden themes: drought tolerant and native, pollinator impact, and a beautiful landscape specimen. Winter flowering shrubs like Corylopsis, Ribes, and Mahonia provide pops of color among the evergreen backdrop of Pinus s. ‘Glauca Nana’, Prostanthera, and Garrya. The garden incorporates a unique mix of lush evergreen grasses — Carex ‘Frosty Curls’ and ‘Cappuccino’ — and dried deciduous foliage seed heads — Muhlenbergia ‘Undaunted’ and Panicum ‘Heavy Metal.’ Colorful spring bulbs and perennials are intermixed with dried perennials stems and flowers, all of which will be used to demonstrate the beauty of these elements in the winter garden. The dried botanicals of last year’s garden offer a valuable reminder that a meadow has aesthetic and ecological importance in all seasons.   

A distinctive feature of this garden is the Makers' Studio.  Acting as the focal point of the space, we built this structure with a mix of fresh and reclaimed cedar and pine treated in the Japanese Shou Sugi Ban style of wood burning, a wood treatment technique performed without the use of harsh synthetic materials. We built the roof of the structure with reclaimed corrugated sheet metal and constructed a faux ‘green roof’ with a floral installation of spring blooms. A complementary floral installation surrounds the exterior base of the structure.  The ‘green roof’ connects to a decorative rain chain that feeds a locally-sourced Columbia Basalt natural dish rock/bird bath. The interior of the studio features tinctures, dried plants, and floral arrangements - all of which demonstrate the medicinal and artistic uses of plants featured throughout the garden.

Another engaging feature is nestled into the understory of the meadow as a little hidden nugget for viewers to discover: a pollinator insect hotel created with reclaimed bamboo.  The garden will also be decorated with tiny moments of natural wonder: foraged birds nests, cones, and other natural items from our personal collection. And finally, our beloved bike will be festooned with floral garland and a foraging basket.  


And lastly, we owe credit to a few favorite places and resources that inspired and informed this design:

  • The cultivated gardens and wild meadows of the Midwest where our founder, Britt, grew up

  • The naturalistic garden designs of Piet Oudolf, Nigel Dunnet, Noel Kingsbury, and countless others

  • Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates: Plants for a Lush, Water-Conscious Landscape by Nora Harlow and Saxon Holt

  • Planting in a Post-Wild World by Thomas Rainer and Claudia West

  • Under Western Skies by Jennifer Jewell

  • Dry Stone Walling: Materials and Techniques by Nick Aitken

  • The Cut Flower Sourcebook by Rachel Siegfried

  • The Flower Hunter by Lucy Hunter

  • Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy

THE PROCESS

Grow with us.

Lacewing Fine Gardening and Botanical Design is an ecological landscape design/build company that creates naturalistic outdoor spaces.  Our landscape designs celebrate four season interest with a focus on beautiful and beneficial plant choices that support pollinators and create magic in a vase arrangement. Our landscape construction projects prioritize natural materials and building techniques. We are a passionate group of designers, builders, plant nerds, natural stone enthusiasts, dry stack wall builders, and wild floral designers with a deep love and respect for nature.  While this is our first year participating in the show, we are looking forward to celebrating 10 years of building gardens in November 2025.