Saxon Holt directs the Summer-Dry Project, an initiative to provide gardeners with plant information and photos that inspire sustainable, climate adapted gardens in the summer-dry climates of the Pacific West Coast, from Baja to BC, where winters can be wet even though summers are dry. This includes working with California’s WUCOLS landscape plant database (Water Use Classification of Landscape Species) and a new book, Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates: Plants for a Lush, Water-Conscious Landscape. Saxon is a photojournalist who has spent more than 40 years exploring Kingdom Plantae and the fundamental importance of plants to the health of the planet. Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates is his 30th book. His work increasingly focuses on the relationship between gardens and the land, seeking a sustainable aesthetic that can enhance both gardener and the earth. The Summer-Dry.com website has regular blog postings on plant information and a database of photos. He also licenses his archive of garden photography at Photobotanic.com, where he publishes articles on plants and gardens, teaches garden photography and also authored Good Garden Photography, which won the Gold award for Best Overall Garden Book for 2014 from the Garden Communicator’s International. Find Saxon at photobotanic.com.
Gardening in Summer-Dry Climates
The seminar will focus on expanding our climate conversation to include the entire Pacific Coast, from Baja to Vancouver, Canada, as summer-dry. Learn the best plants for San Diego gardens and focus on creating healthy ecotone gardens using specific plants that are climate tolerant, as opposed to drought tolerant. With his stunning photography, Saxon can show you how you can create a gorgeous garden that maintains and expands local and regional biodiversity, takes little from the earth that is not returned, and welcomes and accommodates the presence of wildlife. With global warming, it is now even more critical that we garden in tune with climate.
