There is nothing that heaven does not embrace.
There is nothing that earth does not nourish.
Chuang Tzu 369-286 BC.
Anne Wiesen
Gardeners throughout the world know that the changes we seek in our personal lives and communities can often be met when we imagine, build and tend the right kind of garden. Peace gardens reconcile, rain gardens recycle, food gardens nourish, contemplative gardens distill, and medicine gardens restore. At Design by Plants we help you set in motion conditions in which both your garden and your relationship to nature flourish – each reinforcing and enhancing the health, vitality and resilience of the other.
As an ethnobotanist I am captivated by the spectrum of pathways through which plants enter our lives. Plants nourish our bodies, stir our spirit, enrich our homes, and infuse our traditions, art forms and lexicon with beauty and meaning. I will draw from this rich palette of plant uses to bring resolution to your garden goals and aspirations. Together we will select plants that resonate in physical, emotional and spiritual dimensions. We may review your culinary preferences, your seasonal preferences, special childhood memories in nature, or visions for a new future. These personal choices will shape the function, aesthetic, and energetic quality of your space, and will also beckon you to the garden.
In addition to creating a garden that works on a personal level I will consider with you how your garden functions within larger systems, such as the local plant, pollinator and wildlife systems, as well as the sun, wind, and water systems. Permaculture was developed over the last 50 years to help us see and coordinate our work on the land with successful evolutionary patterns. Seeds scatter to create abundance; tree limbs branch, multiplying resilience; leaves find multiple exposures through the spiral pattern of stems growth. Learning the wisdom of nature through Permaculture has added new layers of poetry and significance to my view of urban nature, challenging me to seek the whole universe within each garden I visit. I will help you to see and weave these timeless patterns into your own garden, creating evolving spaces of gardens within gardens that ground, guide, and inspire.
Community Herbalist, Certificate: Arbor Vitae Herb School 2016
Permaculture Design, Certificate: Permaculture-Exchange 2010
Landscape Design, Certificate: New York Botanical Garden 2005
MS Plant Resources/Ethnobotany, NYU/NYBG
MA Education/Human Potential, Harvard University
Co-Founder & Director, Meristem: Restorative Gardens for Heathcare (2000-2010)
Co-Editor, Restorative Commons: Creating Health and Well-Being through Urban Landscapes (2009)