Master My Garden Podcast
Master My Garden podcast with John Jones. The gardening podcast that helps you master your own garden. With new episodes weekly packed full of gardening tips, how to garden guides, interviews with gardening experts on many gardening topics and just about anything that will help you in your garden whether you are a new or a seasoned gardener. I hope you enjoy.John
Master My Garden Podcast
EP315- 2026 GLDA Conference Preview With Marion & Kinta: The Interconnection Of All Things Starts In Your Garden
What if your garden could slow a storm, clean a river, and lift your mood in one sweep? We dive into the GLDA’s “The Interconnection of All Things,” a bold, practical look at how plants act as living infrastructure—supporting biodiversity, soaking up floodwater, buffering noise, and restoring our connection to place.
We explore how language and myth can sharpen ecological awareness, then shift into concrete strategies designers can use right now. From award‑winning rewilding by Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt to Biomatrix Water’s floating gardens that transform hard-edged docks into thriving habitats, the common thread is nature doing the heavy lifting. We unpack urban projects that blend SUDS, habitat corridors, and human access, showing how rain gardens, engineered tree pits, and permeable surfaces turn runoff into a resource. Heritage expert Neil Porteous brings the long view from estates and historic gardens, while the legacy of the late Séamus O’Brien reminds us how deep plant knowledge shapes resilient landscapes. Designer Margie Ruddick connects ecology to culture and community, with case studies from New York to China and Mexico that fuse stormwater design, microclimate, and everyday public life.
Expect clear takeaways for small city plots and large sites alike: mix native and adapted plants for function and beauty, design for water first, collaborate with gardeners for long-term care, and treat every garden as part of a wider network from mountain to sea. If you’ve ever wondered how to move beyond hard landscaping trends toward spaces that actually heal, this conversation delivers inspiration and tools you can apply this season.
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Until next week
Happy gardening
John
How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 315 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode is one that we've covered over the last couple of years, and it's where we're doing a preview of the GLDA conference or seminar. And over the last few years, the subjects of the meeting of the seminars has been very brave, uh forward-thinking. So the GLDA are a series of garden designers, but they're conscious of what's happening in the world. Last year's conference I attended that myself, it was excellent. And there was a lot of things spoke about in relation to you know slowing down water, the suds, talking about suds and slowing down water within within urban environments, about planting in urban environments. And all of that is you know really relevant going forward and given the weather conditions that we have. And this year's seminar is called The Interconnection of All Things. And I suppose the overview of it, and Kinta will tell us all about that now in a minute, but the overview of it is that you know it these garden designers are conscious of their part in the interconnection of all things. We're looking at things like biodiversity loss, um, you know, habitats collapsing and so on, and where does plants and where does gardens and where does garden design sit amongst that? So that's again a really forward-thinking and and and brave subject to be talking about. And to preview the whole event, uh, I'm delighted to be joined by Kinta and Marion from the GLDA. And they're going to give us the overview and also go through the speakers one by one. So you're very, very welcome to Master My Garden podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks very much, John. Um, I would like to talk initially about the inspiration for the interconnectedness of all things. Uh, I was watching um a documentary by, I hope you get his name right here, now Mancom Mankin. And it was called Listen to the Land Speak. And I, you know, I've been mean to watch it and I'd watch it, and the guy just blew me away. He really did. I mean, he was talking about um connection to the landscape through the Irish language, and uh, like he's written a book, you know, 32 Words for Field. And he connects through the Irish language to landscape, but also through mythology and our forebears that actually used the landscape to grow crops, to know what you know, time of year it was and things like that. So um we need to recreate that connection back for ourselves, back to our plants and back to our landscapes. Um so uh he has a lovely, he is a lovely word actually, and it was an Irish word, and this really intrigued me as well. It's called uh Sui, I hope I pronounced it right, Sui Tu, which is it describes the sound of the sea sucking in and out. Um and all of a sudden you're put into a place with one word, one Irish word, uh, where the sea is coming in, you can hear the stones rolling and it's going back out again. And it's very sort of it involves all your senses, you know, that one word. So I found that very, very intriguing. Um so I'll hunt so he he was actually the inspiration for this. And I again I was quite shocked to see during the in the uh documentary that he was unwell and he passed a lot quicker than I expected him to.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, no, he was amazing. Um I'm not gonna pull you up on your Irish pronunciation because I know it wouldn't be any better, to be honest with you. But um yeah, so he he was absolutely brilliant at bringing it to a place or describing feelings and connecting that back to, as you say, Irish mythology and connection to the land and connection to nature. And he was also forward thinking in in that, right? He knows the type or he knew the type of harm that we have as a species have been doing, um, but he was also forward thinking in in talking about what can be done and so on. So yeah, that kind of links well with what you guys are are trying to cover on the seminar.
SPEAKER_00:Well, he brought up he actually brings up in in in um halfway through the first hour is the health of the river. I mean, I think if you have a healthy river, we have healthy habitats either side of it, and that connects all the way back to the urban environment. And I know that you know our Dublin City Council are doing a lot of work at the Talk River at the moment with regards to that, you know. So he was spot on, and then he that's where he again he blew me away. So um, I think Marion's going to talk about the plant uh yeah connection.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, thanks, Kinta. Hi, John. Yeah, so I'm a gail gore.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant.
SPEAKER_02:So I can pronounce all those words properly. So he is Monjon McGann, and I knew Monjon actually, I'd I'd worked him up once or twice, but he was amazing, and it was so sad that he passed away so uh quickly in the end, but so young. Like actually, I uh in one of the Instagram posts, somebody's you know, when they were people talking about how sad it was that he had died, and I said, Ma I just put in a little small one-liner thing, he would have been Monchong for president, he would have made an amazing Irish president, and it got so many likes, you know, so many people. He just resonated with all of us. What he has done that in his books is that he has brought about an interconnection with us back to our landscape and back to our roots of our language, which is what sets us apart from every other culture, as an indigenous language does. The language was born out of the land, and you know, we we are farmers, but we're not now, sure we're not, but you know, that's ultimately what the people on this island were farmers. So, of course, they were gonna be looking and and not sort of educated in the formal sense. So, of course, people were gonna be looking at the plants and at the trees and at the clouds to see if it's gonna rain, you know, like these weather apps. We've become so sort of dependent on technology, but like it's just it's such an unreal world. But that is the thing, then, with our seminar, and that's why when Kinta was telling me about the origins of the concept behind the seminar, this interconnection that we have with all things, and really the plants are the the poster boy, if you like, for that interconnection back to nature, and trees are within that plant world as well, and it's it's so important, it's aesthetically beautiful, you know, they look gorgeous, but then we have to go deeper within ourselves and say, you know, when you do stand in in nature, lie down in long grass or look up at trees, you know, we have a physical reaction to that, we feel better, it's good for our well-being. And we've we're really divorced from that in this 21st century world. And unfortunately, I think that so much of that is to do with being on social media too much or being really dependent on technology and just not getting out into nature. Now it's tricky on days like this where it's pouring rain while we're all talking nicely about this. But yeah, I mean, plants really are the unsung heroes in that web of life, and they're the main players that's they just plants support every life, every bit of life in every corner of the world for our food, and you know, even the air that we breathe is all dependent on plants. So, um, and then us as garden designers and landscape architects and landscape designers in the GLDA, that it's so important. Like we really have to shout from the hilltops or the you know, the tops of the skyscraper buildings. Nature is under threat, really important, and it's up to us to you know educate ourselves and how to make it better. And also when we're dealing with clients, how important it is for us to be, you know, delivering that message, even if it's for carbon capture or suds, you know, um sustainable urban drainage systems. I always have to try and remember exactly what suds stands for. All these kind of buzzwords, you know, is it sustainable garden? You know, we have to really sort of pair it all back and go back to the plants, you know. That's what the basis of nature is all about, and just how interconnected that our quality of life is with that of the landscapes that we live in and that we work in, and also that we play in, you know, we have to really remind ourselves of that. Because I mean, God, ultimately, I suppose it is us humans, like for so long that we've attempted to control nature, and I guess that's partly what maybe some of gardening can be about. But in doing that, but we haven't really gotten to a great place with climate change and with the breakdown in you know, species loss and biodiversity, it's just failing all around us, and when we see these really, really very, very tough storms happening, um, it's such a wake-up call. And it's very, very important to, like I suppose, as well, that nature-based solutions is another buzz term. But honestly, that is what what all of this is about, and that's how a lot of the speakers that we have chosen and have asked to be part of our seminar, they are very much embedded in this way of thinking. So that we'll be hearing about things like in historic gardens as well as very, very old gardens, but new gardens, and it doesn't matter what space you have, you know, um, and in urban situations and how plants are really uh the gatekeepers to the answers to these climate issues.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you you mentioned something there. Um we need to educate ourselves and we need to educate our clients, and I think that captures exactly, as I said at the start, I think you you generally choose topics that are brave and forward thinking, um, and this is no different. So you can understand, like from your perspective now, you you you call to a client and you know they're all in at the moment is the porcelain tiles, the outdoors, the outdoor uh kitchen essentially, the garden rooms, the artificial grass in certain cases, and so on. And okay, over the last number of years, there definitely has been a move in terms of plants towards the softer mixing native and non-native. Um but there is definitely still, as you said, educating ourselves and educating our clients on how important all these little patches around the country are, you know, these gardens that we have, be there be they urban or rural, that they have a part to play in this bigger conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. And if we're not, as I say, singing from the hilltops, well then I mean, who else is gonna do it? You know, we really, us garden designers and and landscape designers, we are at the coal face. We really are. But we we we and it can be a bit overwhelming, but that's why we at the GLTA, why we do our seminar, because why we always and we've spent so we're so careful about the topic of the seminar because it has to be brave. Like we had Mary Reynolds a couple of years ago, and I we don't know who was more terrified, her or us, but you know, I mean, she stood at the top and she, you know, and she said, guys, you know, we really have to look at how we design gardens, and and we know that, and we are we are all changing our our way of doing that. And you're always listening to a client, you know. Uh we talk about this stuff incessantly, quite nerdy, and you know, we really do. But we are stewards of the living world.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but I think we also have to realize that our gardens are our gardens, but we also have to share them, you know, with insects, uh habitats, you know, the plants create the habitats and the biodiversity in the garden. They also have the ability, as you say, to clean air, but also to clean water. And they shape our landscapes culturally as well. So there's a huge interconnectedness there with everything. And there's also sort of serendipitous sort of opportunities with plants to create medicine for us as well. So if we're wiping out our plants, um there's the opportunity lost for you know discovery of new medicines and things like that. So we have to bring the plants right up, you know, um into the foreground because they are what's what's doing all the work. The other thing is is that uh there was a term that was framed, sorry, coined in 1999 uh by two botanists in America called plant blindness. And there will be a lot of people that are not aware of the natural environment around us, you know, they're not even aware that, oh, that's a tree or that's a plant, but they don't realise what those plants and trees are doing for our environment.
SPEAKER_01:And I suppose that's probably way more true now than it was. When did you say that was kind in 1999?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It's probably way more true now because there is generally speaking a disconnection with the natural world in most generations. And that disconnection seems to be or the gap between connection and disconnection seems to be getting wider as you know, as generations move through. Um so you know, there is an onus on us all now to start reversing that, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and it it's important that we don't get very negative and down and overwhelmed because that that happens in a heartbeat, you know. Everybody goes, you know, those kids they don't understand that everything on their pizza has actually come out of the soil at some point. And you know, honestly, like I I you know, when you are teach or talking to youngsters and you say, Do you realize how dependent your pizza or your burger is on soil? And they're looking at you, they just don't know what you're talking about. The connection, you know, the tin of beans. That's yeah, it it is it is very anyway, but we you know, and that again is why we we have the seminar every year where it is upbeat and where we bring in that this is another thing where we bring international speakers over and they talk about these these particular um issues and subjects because they're speaking about them in their countries. This is not just a small group of people in Ireland banging on about this stuff, this is global, and uh to the point of we have Lulu Erhart and Adam Hunt speaking, and they have actually been part of a new conference that started, I think it was on about two weeks ago, in Manchester called Wilding Gardens, and that had myself and Kint were talking about this earlier on, it was almost like um a reunion of past GLDA seminar speakers. They had Tom Stewart Smith was at it, and Fergus Garrett of Dixter, James Hitchmo, John Little, Nigel Dunnett, you know, I could go on on Isabella Tree. So all of those people who are talking about wilding and rewilding, um you know, and and that's a a bit of a another catchphrase, but it's all basically the same kind of connection to nature and back to back to the plants, really.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. You you mentioned these speakers, and there's quite a list again this year, some really high profile. Maybe you might, you know, start going through these and and outline the topic of their individual talks within the overall seminar.
SPEAKER_02:Sure. So we have um, as I just said there, Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt are our first our first two speakers. So they have a um company together. Uh they they were described in uh sorry, um they are British. Okay, so Lulu lives, I think, in Cornwall, I can't remember, in South of the United States. Somerset uh Dorset and Somerset. Oh Somerset, I'm sorry, excuse me. And then Adam lives in Cork, in Ireland. Um so as far as I know, they've got two offices there. But they were described in GQ magazine recently as Britain's coolest gardeners. So um, and so their main thrust really is ecology and rewilding. Um so they are very, very they they did a show garden in Chelsea in 2022 uh called Rewilding Britain Landscape. And it was the beaver garden, I think is really what everybody knew it as. It won gold and all that kind of stuff, but also won Best and Show. And um it was highlighting the really important role that the beaver plays in um as an ecosystem engineer basically in landscape restoration. And their garden, uh we don't need to go on too much into the detail about it, but again, it was all about cleaning water. And if you allow beavers into a river, just by it making a dam, it makes all these different little chambers in it, and the babies can um uh uh swim through it, and it basically filters the water, but it also so that the water is cleaner than for further down river for other species, but also then the wetlands on the sides of the river become um a much more um, I suppose, better place for other species to grow as well. Yeah, so it's again, it's this, you know, there's that wolf interconnection. Yeah, exactly, and and the wolf thing as well about over in in the States. But it's um so anyway, so Lulu and Adam are going to be talking to us on the day as well about bringing nature back into gardens to restore biodiversity through ecological design and landscape-led thinking. So, and really for resilience, and that these are resilience to climate change and capturing more carbon and all those massive big issues, you know, but how everybody can do it in a smaller space.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh Galen Fowitt, uh Fulford, sorry, is um he's an inventor and an environmental uh entrepreneur, and he has a company called Biomatrix Water, and it's about making um floating gardens, basically, to clean water systems that have been highly polluted. And it's a modular system, so you can make it as big as you like or as small as you like. Um, he's done about projects all around the world. Uh he's doing a project, he's currently uh looking at doing a project at the moment in the Dublin Docklands. And what's interesting about that is that the docklands are there, but you he creates walkways between the floating gardens and he brings nature back into for people in the city, in the urban area. Because it's quite a hard environment, you know, in Dublin City or even in London. In Eden Dock, he's created some stunning gardens there and and timber walkways and seating. And so the the uh office workers come down for lunch and they're sitting there right in the middle of this, you know, birds are nesting, you know, and it's cleaning the water as well, which is incredible.
SPEAKER_01:So um so this is a floating garden.
SPEAKER_00:A floating garden, yeah. So he does river rivers and and canals and as I say, duck ducklands as well.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it creates a huge biodiversity environment around which wouldn't be there otherwise.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And also it it's it's an amenity for people to enjoy.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_00:So birds are nesting and you know, insects are coming in, and you know, it's it's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's creating yeah, creating an ecosystem or putting a new ecosystem into a place that's basically ha has no ecosystems except for possibly some some element of a water ecosystem, if you're top talking about the Dublin Docklands, for example, to add in a new ecosystem. And it can be really difficult to do that in you know places like that because everywhere's concreted over and there's there's buildings and storage and sheds, sheds and yards. So, how do you get any type of ecosystem going there? Well, that's that's a brilliant, a brilliant example. I hadn't hadn't seen or come across that before.
SPEAKER_00:No, it's very, very clever. He actually did an article for us in our magazine there, the last one, the previous one. Um so these plastic, uh these floating platforms were initially designed to tackle highly contaminated waterways to bring them back to life. But they were much more than providing tranquil green space for the people and communities who live nearby. So these projects are a wonderful example of interconnectedness and how working in collaboration with nature rather than against it to tackle individual problems that shape our landscapes and waterways in positive ways. So yeah. And in a recent interview, um he gave and spoke about how his approach is all about giving nature a chance to do the work. All of these components. Are purely about giving nature the toehold that it needs to thrive and flourish and to do what it does best, powered by photosynthesis, biology, and ecology rather than flocculence and chemicals. So I think there's some issues down in the Shannon there. I think he could use some of his work to tell me in the Shannon.
SPEAKER_02:And up in Loch Nay and Belfast as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, it's they're talking about that uh at the moment. They're they're finding it really hard to find any type of long-term solution. But yeah, uh, it's incredible. I've seen foen photographs, and it's it's not like it's it's obviously some form of algae, but it's it's a really strange green as well. Like it's it's a luminous looking, it's looks very toxic actually. Do you can see the interconnection? You've both you've both mentioned it as you're as you're talking about the you know the first couple of speakers, the incon interconnection. Um so yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a it's creating these and as you said, once nature gets the chance, it will, you know, it will come back and it will move into areas. So to give it that to give it something to connect to in the first place is what's important, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And to reconnect, reconnect nature with how it's supposed to be as well. I mean, we have to really remind ourselves that our good health is intrinsically linked to the good health of the planet, and the planet is only going to be healthy if we treat it that way. You know, it's yeah, it's just we're so we're so interconnected. We just need to be reminded of it more and more. Um, Neil Portius is another one of our speakers, and he's going to be talking about plants for Irish gardens for the 21st century. Now, Neil is one of those people, he's a garden historian, but also landscape management and horticulturist. He's from the north of Ireland. Um, he's worked with the National Trust for years, and he was in Mount Stuart in County Down. Um, he's worked with the OPW, he's worked all over Ireland. If you've got a castle, Neil is your man, basically. Right, yeah. Um, and he speaks about managing and designing but redesigning in a very ecological way as well. Um, any of these big, big estates and large-scale gardens like Blarney Castle and Clan de Boy, which is um that's up in Bangor in in the north. Um, he's worked in Mount Stuart, obviously, as I said, and also Glenoram Castle in Antrim, but he's also worked in um oh, what's the place that's opened up in in Waterford, Mount Congreve.
SPEAKER_01:Mount Congreve, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So really, you know, Neilport is like I say, he's your man for if you've got a bit of an L castle and lots and lots of land. So he's into you know, like he will he will be he really is the inherited voice in garden restoration throughout, like I say, the whole island of Ireland. And um yeah, he's an amazing speaker, his passion for plant knowledge is just incredible, and but he's also got real um practical experience, you know, and that that's he is a garden consultant specialist in heritage properties. I guess that's if you want to really sort of give him his proper title, and um his um just massive amount of travels and his study of plants is just is and and and the way that he speaks about he's so passionate, it's so infectious, it's great. He's a great, great speaker. So um he very, very kindly stepped in kind of a for us uh only about a couple of weeks ago because on our original list of speakers, Seamus O'Brien was due to speakers, and Seamus was um ah he was the David Attenborough of Ireland, really. He passed away very suddenly and very sadly in uh the middle of uh end of December, we were absolutely shocked. Um Seamus O'Brien was the head of Kilmacurra, which is the kind of the country cousin part of the Botanic Gardens in Glass and Avon. Kilmacora is a big estate that's in County Wicklow and North County, or in near British Bay in County Wicklow. Beautiful, beautiful gardens. And Seamus was its steward and looked after it, and uh he was very excited. He put up a post at the early beginning of December saying that they had finally gotten the OPW to restore the main house in Kilmacurra. And honestly, the whole gardening industry and the horticultural world were like, that is just amazing, it's fantastic news. And then next thing we heard that he had he had died suddenly in on the 22nd of December. So Seamus would have gone to different parts of the world to do plant um expeditions. And uh I ne I didn't know Seamus, I only met him once, and I just thought, now there's a guy I want to spend more time with. He was cheeky and irreverent and just looked like lots of fun. If you wanted to know about how to do a meadow, probably Seamus was the man, you know. He was incredible, and the outpouring and the grief and the sadness and the amazing, amazing things that people have said about him online, and it's just he just was this just fantastic presence and fantastic spirit. And but Neil Portius was one of his really good mates, and so they've gone on expeditions abroad to China, Tibet, Nepal together for years and years. So when we asked Neil, would he he Neil spoke at his funeral? It was a fun, it was it was a spectacular event, his funeral. All of his staff in Kilmacura, they all got up and they all took big white candles with them, and they walked down to the altar and they lit all the candles and then they put all the candles at the back of the altar. And it was such a beautiful moment. Oh, it was it was really, really something now, really was. But anyway, so Neil, we asked him if he would um speak instead, not instead, and not just just if he would step in and speak at the seminar.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And he said that he would, and we were just so thrilled because it was it's it's fitting, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Given given that they that they were good friends, but uh I personally didn't know Seamus, but I do know of his impact and his status within horticulture in Ireland and globally. And as I mentioned on the podcast a few weeks ago, like phenomenal in terms of plant knowledge. Uh you know, sometimes in in different fields you have these experts that can stand on any stage globally. And Seamus was definitely one of them from a horticultural perspective. So, you know, he's a huge loss obviously obviously to to horticulture and uh and so on. Um obviously, thoughts with his family, of course, but from a horticultural perspective, um, you know, he's a huge loss to to Irish horticulture and to world horticulture, to be fair.
SPEAKER_02:And to world horticulture, that's a thing, and the outpouring um of just beautiful words that people have said actually on the RIP.ie page as well, which must be and uh look, it's some kind of a comfort to his family, you know, that the love that people had for Seamus was global and uh deep, meaningful, proper, proper, interconnected love, you know, and regard. And he he touched on so many lives. But yeah, so we will be in for a treat listening to Neil Portius. He is a fantastic speaker, and um he's he's just really he's like I say he's an excellent communicator and he's on demand to be a speaker. And right, he's been on, you know, BBC Gardner's question time and all the rest of it. So yeah, so we'll we'll have an international star uh uh at the table in the day.
SPEAKER_01:For sure, for sure.
SPEAKER_00:And um our final speaker is uh Maggie Raddock, and she's coming in from the States. Uh she lives in New York. Um she received in 2000, she's been around for a long time and she's been doing this work for a long time, you know, the uh restoration of landscapes and ecologically uh, you know, driven. So um she in 2006 received the Rachel Carson uh Women in Conservation Award. Um so, as I said, she's been around for a while. Uh through her design, she aims to reconnect people with the wider natural environment by employing a forward-thinking approach to landscape design. She recently described the times we live in as really tempetuous, sorry. But she also believes there is a tangible shift to sustainability and community engagement. And by fusing an understanding of ecology, culture, and good design, we can dramatically improve on what have been strategies to go to from the past. And she's talking about um rewilding as a hot topic, but in 2016, she was one of the few voices calling for a radical shift in a more intuitive approach to the landscape around us. That year she published her book, Wild by Design, Strategies for Creating Life-Ehancing Landscapes, recommended reading for anyone interested in landscape design in the book. She guides the reader through her innovative approach to designing beautiful and meaningful landscapes under the heading of reinvention, restoration, conservation, regeneration and expression. Her highly regarded projects in the US include a transformative design for the concrete jungle that was New York Queen's Plaza. The award-winning project promoted a new idea of nature in one of the world's densest cities, ensuring that stormwater, wind, sun, and habitat merge within an urban infrastructure to create a more sustainable vision of urban life. So though that particular scheme was really creating pedestrian and cycling routes for people to engage with the landscape in On York. So that's that's really, really wonderful. She's also uh I think she was the first, one of the first people to actually uh in China, in Sichuan, China, to create uh ecological park which cleaned the polluted river uh biologically. Uh Margie's nonprofit One Landscape brings together artists, scientists, policymakers, and community members together to collaborate on alternatives to conventional conservation plans for wild landscapes. So she's got a and she's working on a book at the moment called Restoration, and it'll be Restoration Connections and delve into the design journey and the ethos, discovering what restoration means in ecological, creative, and personal terms. So she'll be interesting to listen to because she's still working and she's been doing this for a long, long time. And most of her projects would be sort of like 32 acres, 15 acres. You know, they're not small projects. So I'm really looking forward to seeing that. She's also she's going to bring up a garden that she was working in 20 years ago uh in Mexico that goes from right down to the water, from the land right down to the water. And she planted it 20 years ago, but they've called her back again now because uh it's overrun with one plant. So she'll be uh regenerating that landscape as well. And um she's she's also going to talk about a 3,000 uh acre uh preserve in Mexico. Yeah, so and the Western gnats of India. I think that's actually a place where people go for yoga and you know things like that. So very interesting to listen to.
SPEAKER_01:For sure. Big diverse range of uh subjects there. I suppose the again, you know, you're talking about going into New York City, um, a place where habitat will struggle because of the nature and the size and the scale of the city, and then trying to put something there, put a habitat there that you know that will interconnect the people, as you said, it brings the cycling and the walk walking tracks through it, um, but also provides a habitat then for for nature to take hold.
SPEAKER_00:And also that particular scheme is suds as well. So it's taking excess water water off to the street and holding it in in that in that landscape, you know. So that's and also you've got pollution as well. Uh there's apparently there's a train line that's very close to that, and the screeching trains were really irritating. But apparently that's screening out that noise as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, noise pollution, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's doing a lot of work, which is and then that comes back to plants. That's what's doing the work, you know, which is extraordinary.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's a incredible list of speakers and and a and a vast array of subjects and topics, but all coming back to the to the same thing of um yeah, the interconnection between our cities, our people, our land, and and you know the the health of ecosystems and so on. And in turn, as you said, Marian, our own health and our own well-being is is connected to that. You can't be disconnected from it.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly. And also, you know, just to say that the seminar, something as well that connects each of these um obviously is the plants, but also is the connection to gardeners. So, like I know Lulu and Adam are very, very hot, and Neil as well, Neil Portis, there and Margie as well, they're very hot on dealing with head gardeners in places, so they don't just come along and design something and then leave and say, you know, then they have to come back. So they're very, very keen to be connecting into the gardeners, to the people who own the property, or else to a head gardener if it's a very large property and to work in tandem with them. So that, and again, the wilding um conference that they've just organized over in Manchester, Wilding Gardens, that's going to become a not much, that's going to, you know, this time next year, I think everybody's going to be talking about that one. But again, it's just that our seminar is connecting in with all of that kind of stuff as well. But from the gardener point of view, and how important it is that the people who are doing the actual gardening are learning more about these kind of mechanisms as well. And because, you know, the gardeners are the ones who are doing all the hard work and keeping the plants alive and that there, if there is something that's uh encroaching or taking over, that you know, the gardener is the one who sort of manages to well manage that landscape. And so that's within the GLDA, we're always keen to be, you know, connecting with other ecologists and gardeners, um, landscapers. It's not just about the design aspect of it, it's kind of way more important than just that. And you know, as Kinto was saying about our magazine, we have our Compass magazine, and when you become a member, you get Compass magazine twice a year. And all of these kind of people are writing in that magazine, you know. It's and it's the only real garden design magazine in the on the island of Ireland that that we have, and it's a very, very good publication. But it's so you know, it's just to sort of say that that there is lots of lots of help and lots of information that we are generating and just to make sure that people are aware of that and that they're able to access it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, and as you said, in relation to the speakers, they're they're not going to somewhere and and just designing a garden, they're talking to the head gardeners, and it goes back to something that you said at the very start. You're educating yourselves and in turn educating your clients. And it is that again passing this information down, trying to assimilate it out into the into the wider environment so that people start to have an awareness, more of an awareness, you know, as we garden, as we design gardens, as we manage large spaces or small spaces, that we should have at the very least an eye on this thing and and try and you know improve the situation that we find ourselves in today. And it is, as you said, you could be negative, you know, when you look at any of these documentaries and so on. You could be negative in relation to that, but there is definitely a huge surge coming from gardening and gardeners where they are looking to protect the environment and build ecosystems within their own gardens, and um and conferences like this or seminars like this really do reinforce that and and and help that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah, thanks. Yeah, that's that's the aim of it. I suppose we should also talk about the tickets, get down to the money part. So tickets are still available, and you can get them on our website, which is glda.ie, obviously www before that. Um we are uh and what you get for your ticket is well, you can buy one ticket where you get your year membership, and that's why I was talking about Compass Magazine, because you get that magazine within your membership. So it might seem like a lot of money, but it's really, really worthwhile. Um, we're on social media, so we're on LinkedIn, we're on Instagram, and we are on Facebook. And uh so at uh G L D A Ireland, and so please give us a follow, have a look, and you'll be able to see any updates and um information about the seminar. With your ticket price, you get a hot lunch included on the day, and there's also two teen coffee breaks either side of it. And the reason that we have that format is because it's not just a day to sit there in a dark room looking up at pretty pictures of things and get inspired, but because it's the beginning of the year of the horticultural year, it's the Saturday, the 28th of February, 2026, is our date, and it's all day, and it's in the Crown Plaza Hotel out in Santry, and again, everything's on the website and our social media, but it's a great way to meet old friends in the gardening industry and also for networking, like you know, lots of people meet different landscapers there, or we also have sponsorship um product sponsors there, so we have stands on the day, you know, talking about. So, for example, we've got AliTechs over from the UK talking about their beautiful glass houses. Enrich will be there, they'll be talking um showing different types of soils that they sell. The gutter bookshop are there from Temple Bar in Dublin, and they will be there selling books, which is always the best place. Everybody loves it.
SPEAKER_01:It was a busy stand last year.
SPEAKER_02:It's always jammed. Yeah, we they're and they're so amazing. Every time we, you know, email them, are you going to do the seminar this? Yes, of course we are, you know. And it's great because they wouldn't be known as a gardening bookshop, you know, in the way that maybe the Rathgar bookshop was years and years and years ago before they closed down. So it's a really cool thing that the Gother Bookshop are getting this new kind of following, if you like.
SPEAKER_01:And they had a huge selection of books, like obviously, you know, the recent gardening books are are always in all the bookshops. Yeah. But they had a selection of books across different channels, countries, yeah, topics, um, even some obscure stuff that I found really interesting. And yeah, there was there was a big selection, and it was like you were you were bitten by a few of those.
SPEAKER_02:You didn't know. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. We have to mention our big um our other sponsor as well, which is Borgbia. So Borg Bea are very kindly, um, they they give us offers a financial sponsorship every year, which without that we wouldn't be able to put this this seminar on. It's an expensive thing to do. And then we've also got Chalkosk, our product sponsor this year. Yeah, and they'll be coming up and talking about the different horticulture and gardening courses that they supply out in the botanic gardens. So that's going to be good. And of course, like all of the top gardeners that have come out of this country, like Jimmy Blake and Seamus O'Brien, Paul Martin, Dear McGavin, we could go on and on, but they've all come out of the Botanic Gardens, out of the Chagas course. So yeah, so that's what it is. So G L D A.ie for tickets.
SPEAKER_01:Tickets, yeah. Um and it's definitely a great day out. And as Marion said, from a networking point of view or from meeting people point of view, you know, you'll meet a lot of people there, a lot of interesting people, uh, old friends and potential new friends. So it is, it's a it's a it's a nice, a nice day out, as well as you know, from an education perspective, a very, very informative and uh you know on the on the cutting edge of of the conversations around garden design. So again, a brave topic uh uh this year and an important topic. Uh before we start to close off, just both of you run your own practices. Anything that's you know that we're seeing in terms of trends or oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um well at the moment, um what's interesting is that the the well during the planning application process, a lot of the councils are asking for a lot more room underground to keep so our trees will survive. So they're looking at um 12 cubic metres underground that we have to supply, and you can do that through crates and engineered soil. Um also those those tree pits can now. To suds as well. That's one big thing. And what's happened to me in the last uh couple of weeks is that a garden I'm working on turns out that it's going to have serious water problems. So I'm working with the engineers on doing one of those systems. So that's coming to the fore now. And it it has to be able to hold. So we're putting in rain gardens, it's exactly what we were talking about last year. And the rain gardens will be above ground and the crates will be underground. So there won't be an issue of flooding. So it's interesting. But this particular site is in D4, and D4 has a bad uh has a reputation of having a high water table.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I'm finding that really challenging and interesting uh projects to work on. So that's what I'm seeing at the moment, apart from the the mixture of using natives and non-natives as well. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That conversation is raging on at the moment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. What about you, Marian?
SPEAKER_02:Anything that you're seeing that's um well, I have to say that since COVID, I do find that clients are um I don't have to twist people's arms anymore in terms of having maybe, you know, a ratio of two-thirds to planting to one-third of hard landscaping anymore. Especially I would get a lot of of gardens as well in uh urban areas because I'm I'm based in Dublin Six. So the SUS thing, the water thing is a massive, massive concern, you know, that we have to be providing, building gardens or providing places for that water to soak into, to take the water runoff off roofs, slowing the water down, the rainwater down, you know. Um, and we're constantly, you know, doing different uh CPDs and different um courses on learning how to to to to make and design rain gardens and and lots of other systems, you know. So it is it's exciting, but yeah, you're you're on top of, you know, you have to be on top of your game all the time, and you're always learning something new. So it's it's quite it's still it's still after 17 years in business this year, it's still getting exciting. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:That's good. It's good that there's always something new. It's it's funny that both of you both what both of you mentioned as you know being things that are coming up and are more and more topical. Um, and you're talking with suds particularly. Um over the last week we've had unbelievable rain. And I was just thinking about it the other evening. I was driving from a town area um 15 minutes out to my own house, and everywhere I went, flown off the roads, flown off the car parks, flown out of people's driveways was water, and you're just thinking to yourself, this is all pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing further down the line, and it's just piling in somewhere down the line. Um and it really is yeah, it's definitely important. The more it can be slowed down, and you mentioned the beavers earlier on, and you know, people listening might be saying beavers, like what's that got to do with us? But yeah, when you start to think about it, and you know, you guys have to think about it because you're at the design stage, you're at that you know, engineering point from an engineering point of view, all that has to be starting to be taken of uh into account now. But it is so so important. Um, we've created all these car parks, roads, and we just get water moving so fast that it's doing harm everywhere. Um washing away soil and so on. So it is it it's really important again. Yeah, that was the topic of last year's uh seminar, and it was you know, the the speakers were brilliant and showed real-world examples of how to how to utilize that water, how to slow it down and how to create something with it that you know serves a function, uh solves a problem, and also becomes an ecosystem.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, it's yeah, yeah, it's interesting as well because the councils are making people through planning applications and making you look, you know, deal with the SADS at planning application stage, rather, you know, and I think it's brilliant. Um and then for solutions. I remember doing a job for a client last year in a car park in Talla, and he's and I'm saying, you're really gonna have to put SADS intervention into this job, you know, and he's going, No, we don't want to pay for it. I said, Okay, I'm advising you that this will not go through, you know, unless you deal with that. And of course they said we don't want to deal with it, so it's gonna end and it bounced back again, of course. And for me, it was really good as a landscape architect to put in solutions for that, you know. And then what was interesting about that planning application is they wanted us to connect it to the wider landscape. So even though you're in an urban area, that urban area is connected to a river going through it, and that river goes to the sea and it comes from the mountains. And so that's the way we've got to think. It's not just our little patch, it's you know, it's all everywhere.
SPEAKER_01:The interconnection of all things.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, there you go. I was just gonna say it exactly. And that's all with the river, it's the perfect example because our waste goes into the river. Yeah, and the river has come from somewhere and it moves down to another area, absolutely, and it goes to the sea, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's really interesting, and it it's just to get people to think on that scale, it's not just yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:No, it really is, and and again, the the seminar name, the the speakers, they're forward-thinking, they are providing solutions, providing ideas, provoking thought, provoking conversation. And I think again, as I said at the start, brave and uh very, very important. So um, Marion and Kinta, thank you very, very much for coming on, telling us about this seminar.
SPEAKER_00:Very welcome, our pleasure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's been really interesting chatting. Thank you very much for coming on Master My Garden Podcast.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks very much, John. Really appreciate it. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01:So that's been this week's episode. A huge thanks to Kint and Marion for coming on. Again, as I said, the topics um, you know, from from a gardening perspective, you might at times look at things like this and think, you know, where's the connection between that and our gardens? But there is real connection, plants are at the heart of everything. You know, last year's topic of suds again is really important within gardens across the country. And again, this year's topic is you know, it's as I said, thought-provoking and important, and brave as well, because you know, there's there's there's changes that need to happen within garden design, within landscape design, and you know, the GLDA seminar is definitely tackling and talking about those issues, so worth checking out. Tickets still available on GLDA's website, so that's www.glda.ie, and options there around membership as well for the year, or just um seminar ticket as well. But it's a really great day out, very very good speakers and well worth checking out. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and until the next time, happy gardening.