2024 Spring and Summer Gardening (and self-directed artistic) Retreats open now for application and reservation. Come stay with us for a week or longer and engage with the garden, nursery, forest, native plants, learn new skills, open up new conversations, be with plants (and animals) in a slow and conscious way.

Includes accommodations (several options), local food as available, access to bikes, mornings of learning and lots of free quiet time, use of beautiful yoga studio and swimming pond.

Solo retreats for creative practice, yoga or meditation also encouraged and welcomed.

Email for further details and availability.

In-garden, on site, teaching, coaching, mentoring, sharing and learning is what I love best about connecting with other gardeners. Sharing my knowledge and passion with those who need a hand with something, would like to learn a new skill or are stuck or perplexed in some way is what I can offer. One time, weekly, monthly or randomly. Group sessions also available. Learning on site and in your own garden is an excellent way of expanding and renewing one’s gardening life and gathering inspiration. Let me know how I can help make your garden better.

ANNOUNCING:

Catkin Horticultural Arts

Gardening School 2024

Spaces available for 10 month private tutoring in your own garden and special events.

Enrollees will be offered:

• 10 hours of individual lessons or consultations in their own garden

• 2 seasonal pruning lessons

• 4 evening or Sunday afternoon lecture gatherings with other enrollees

• 10 private monthly newsletters,

• 2 visits to my own garden during the season

Begins February, ends November. Aimed towards forward thinking gardeners of all levels interested in making beautiful, biodiverse, healthy and joyful gardens for humans and the more-than- human.

Lessons can include design and plant selections, methods of care, seed and vegetative propagation, soils and exposure consultations, native and non-native plant identification and communities, encouraging wildlife, pollinator gardening, and whatever else you can dream up.

Spend the year with me.

I have 35 years of learning and practicing appropriate and ecological horticulture suited to our region. I have had the privilege of learning from some of the west coast’s, and beyond, most esteemed horticulturists. I was honored this autumn with one of Pacific Horticulture’s inaugural Design Futurist Awards, one of only seven awardees from the entire west coast. I am looking forward to sharing my work and helping others make beauty and habitat with their gardens.

Limited enrollment email for application and questions.

$1500 per participant for 10 months.

Jenny Harris

wildcatkin@icloud.com

www.wildcatkin.com

360-317-6795

In October 2023, we received notice that our garden at the Joyce L. Sobel Family Resource Center on San Juan Island was awarded honors in the inaugural Design Futurist Awards from Pacifc Horticulture. Garden designers from the entire length of the west coast region were invited to send in their entries for modest sized gardens. There were two co-winners of the top prize and we were one of 5 additional honors. It is quite a thing to be honored in this way by a very esteemed jury. We are in the amazing company of other designers, landscape architects and passionate plantspeople. As Juror Daniel J. Hinkley put it “the value of the future impact of such an award: at best, this kind of recognition inspires even better work in the future, from non-award-winners and the award winners themselves to live up to such recognition.” This is certainly something I take to heart and will endeavor to create even better gardens that support biodiversity, address climate crisis, showcase native plants and engage human beings for the well-being of all.

https://pacifichorticulture.org/articles/and-the-design-futurist-award-goes-to/

Designing ecological and appropriate gardens is at the heart of my work. Taking into account the land, the history, the existing plant communities and animals that make their homes in or around our gardens is essential to making a garden filled with meaning and commitment to the health of all of life. We can have beautiful gardens filled with flowers and food, shelter and views, while considering that we share the land with many small lives upon which we depend.

just images…