Extraordinary gardens are born from personal inspiration. Discover how reclaimed and salvaged materials can transform ordinary landscapes into distinctive, sustainable gardens that tell a compelling story. Learn proven techniques to make creative, beautiful spaces that nurture pollinators, enhance site conditions and divert waste from landfills — landscapes that are both environmentally responsible and uniquely yours.

Hear from three innovative West Coast designers transforming how we think about gardens!

Registrants will receive three pre-recorded lectures in late November to be watched at their own pace, along with an electronic form on which questions can be submitted in advance of a Zoom panel discussion featuring a moderated Q&A session.

Design Tips and Life Lessons in Creative Reuse with Lorene Edwards Forkner

Get hot takes and hear some invaluable cautionary tales from Lorene Edwards Forkner, a lifelong gardener dedicated to creative reinvention and resourcefulness. You’ll hear design tips, suggested resources and materials, and gain encouragement to make your unique mark on the landscape.

Creating Depth and Dimension: Designing with Salvaged Materials with Clare Lidell Hanna

If you’ve ever struggled to make reclaimed or salvaged materials feel intentional rather than cluttered, this session is for you. Claire Lidell Hanna, founder and lead designer at Relish Gardens, shares how adaptive reuse can bring depth, contrast and a sense of place to garden design. Drawing from her award-winning display gardens at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival and client projects across the Seattle region, Claire explores the art of repurposing materials to anchor a space. You’ll learn how to create moments of surprise and establish cohesion through repetition and scale.

Let’s Talk Trash: Gardening Beyond the Bin with Nan Sterman

Southern California gardener and designer Nan Sterman invites you to see garden materials in a whole new way. Through creative and sometimes quirky examples from around the world, she’ll motivate you to rethink “trash” (and not-so-trash) as resources for building beauty and function in your landscape. From retaining walls and walkways to trellises, fences and even animal habitats, discover how imaginative reuse can solve garden challenges, save money and keep materials out of the waste stream.

Lorene Edwards Forkner is an author and speaker whose work centers on exploring the wonders of the natural world and garden-making. She writes a weekly gardening column for Pacific NW Magazine in The Seattle Times, posts monthly on Garden Rant, and is the author of numerous gardening titles, including the upcoming Growing Great Vegetables in Washington/Oregon/British Columbia (Timber Press, February 2026) and Color In and Out of the Garden (Abrams, 2022). Lorene is a warm and engaging speaker who uses imagery and language to tell garden/life stories that inspire and inform audiences.

Claire Lidell Hanna is host of the Relished Garden Podcast, and founder of Relish Gardens, a Seattle-based business that builds, design and maintains gardens that reflect each client’s unique style and needs. With back-to-back Best in Show wins at the Northwest Flower & Garden Festival, her work is rooted in horticultural best practices and the creative use of materials to create gardens that are both beautiful and deeply personal.

Nan Sterman is a plant expert, garden designer, botanist and journalist based in southern California. She is a pioneer in sustainable landscaping, with a focus on low-rainfall climates. Her writing has appeared in major gardening publications, and she speaks to audiences nationwide. Nan’s most recent book, Hot Color, Dry Garden: Inspiring Designs and Vibrant Plants for the Waterwise Gardener, guides readers to create vividly colorful home gardens using low-water plants, hardscaping and accessories. Nan is also creator and host of the award-winning public TV show, “A Growing Passion,” and her latest venture, Nan Sterman’s Garden School, supports home gardeners through classes, webinars and peer communities. In her “spare time,” Nan leads curious gardeners on garden adventures around the world.