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<p><img src="/userfiles/6958/kirkj1.jpg" align=left> I was born on November 1, 1953 in Portland, Oregon and grew up in Southern California. I have lived on the southern Oregon coast since 1978. If you look on a globe, I live 5 miles directly east of the tip of Cape Blanco.</p> <p>I never studied horticulture or garden design in school; I was an art student. After learning artistic skills, I discovered that I had nothing to say. I love the art of the past, but I have never thought much of most 20th Century art, especially since the 1960's.</p> <p>Drawing, painting and sculpture seem to be bogged down in a period of decadence. This doesn't seem to be the case with garden design, so many plants were introduced during the 19th and early 20th Centuries that all of the ways of introducing those plants into a garden have not been thoroughly explored.</p> <p>I have a strong foundation in art history, this really helped me to grasp the history of garden design, the two are very closely related. I am not an extreme traditionalist about garden design, but I am always very aware of precedents and traditions.</p> <p>I have been gardening for about 20 years, I do gardening for money and I am trying to get into garden design. So far I have worked with two couples in the design of their gardens. I don't really like to think of myself as having designed these gardens, I don't want to impose my designs onto someone elses garden, I want them to use my design skills to create their own garden.</p> <p>My garden is dominated by water, I am especially interested in aquatic and moisture-loving plants. I also have a rather large collection of rhododendrons, they are one of the few plants that I can plant outside of my garden's fence because the deer don't bother them.</p> <p>I don't really have hobbies, I have interests. I am especially interested in European history from the classical world to the French revolution. I am also very interested in Asian cultures, but I don't know a lot about them. I mainly listen to early music - Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque. I also like some of the more ethereal and harmonic New Age music.</p> <p>I have been active on the internet since November of 1996. I was very active in the Garden Web's forums for most of that period. Now I am mainly active in Delphi's Gardening forum.</p>