MARÍA DEL SOL GALDÓN OF PLANTA LANDSCAPE ON GARDEN DESIGN

Interior design interviews by Form Interiors

We took an inside look at a professional approach to garden design for this edition of The Interview. Award-winning landscape architect María del Sol Galdón sat down with us to talk about her first job picking weeds, creating beautiful gardens with Planta Landscape and why she loves Argentine tango.

I'm curious, what drew you to landscape architecture?

It's a bit of a background story. We lived on a ranch in Argentina and my dad's an agricultural engineer, so I was raised in farmland with lots of trees and plants. He was very much into his plants. When we moved to Canada, the first job that my dad got was at Eagle Lake Nurseries out in Strathmore. And, my very first job was going up and down the road and picking weeds from the pots. I got paid $2 an hour and I was so proud.

Oh, that's great.

I had always liked design personally, so that's why I started with interior design. I did my undergrad at Mount Royal. What I noticed is that a lot of my parents' friends were asking me to design their gardens because I knew all the plant material. I knew that aspect of it, and I had the design to back me up.

As I started doing garden design, I realized I felt way more confident in that than interiors. I went to do my Master's at UBC in Vancouver. And, then I worked right away in the summers to get my registration and my stamp.

So it’s in your blood, really.

I would grab leaves from different trees and dry them. And I would ask my dad, “What’s the name of this one?” and write the Latin name. I loved plants, and I would make my own perfumes. I did a lot of experiments with plants. I don't know, it was in my blood, I think.

How do you typically begin a project?

Getting a sense and a feeling of that space, like actually standing there and seeing what are the sun angles, where’s the wind coming from, what are the view sheds.

It’s interesting because, for example, sometimes people have lived there for a long time and they're just doing a renovation, they have a very specific understanding, right? Like, “Oh, I love this corner because this is where I get the sun,” and “this is where I have my morning coffee,” or “that is way too sunny and we just don't use it anymore,” or whatever.

Sometimes if it's new, somebody that's just purchased a house, or building a brand new house, they have no idea. It’s sort of figuring that out together.

What makes the biggest difference to the feeling in an outdoor space?

To me a really important aspect, and I think it's mis-regarded, or maybe not really understood, is scale. Especially on some of these new residencies. These massive imposing structures on a lot, and how do you balance that out? How do you make that really fit in place and in context?

I think that’s one of the things that’s often missing, bringing it down to human scale to really create a sense of space. That could be through vegetation, through elements, through architectural elements.

OK. So getting the balance is the key?

In all fairness, most of the work I do is residential, and it's really about the architecture. It's about that massing. And, landscape always comes last. Not that it’s good or bad, it’s just the reality of it.

Fair enough. We live in a challenging climate, how do you create variety when you’re working with the plants that are available in our growing zone?

That's actually super important, because it is true. I always try to do seasonal landscaping or seasonal gardens, so that for every season there's something of interest. You really can’t base it on flowers because we just get that for two weeks out of the year. Sometimes it’s not just about the green itself, but maybe the actual physical structure that creates something architectural.

Evergreens, in our climate, are a huge factor, but there's lots of things to bring interest. First of all there's berries that could create an accent, or even just the contrast of branches with the snow. Dogwoods have purple branching, so if you do a mass planting of those and contrast it with an evergreen you still get that seasonal interest without any foliage. They spark colour.

A lot of it, I would also say, is structure. The architectural structure of a plant or a shrub or a tree can create a lot of interest, but absolutely seasonality is very important. I think a composition of all those elements so that you're not just thinking about it just in spring when everything is in bloom, but how does it play throughout the season?

That makes sense. You touched on this earlier, but I was curious about where your inspirations for each design come from?

Context is key, and then I really try to look at the architectural style. So if somebody is building a very modern home, with very clean lines, I try and balance that out in the landscape.

So I would say context and then architectural style, and then after that any specific client requirements – if they have any ideas about something they’d want to create.

I find that usually once you see the architectural style or the design for their home, I get a very clear idea of what the garden should represent.

Right. Obviously your work deals with living things. What is the best program of maintenance in your view to keep a space beautiful?

That’s a huge factor because, without maintenance it’ll just deteriorate. That's actually one of the things that I do ask and talk through thoroughly at my first consultation with a client. What level of maintenance are you willing to do? I'm not going to design, even if you wanted it, a beautiful English garden, if you say, “I’m going to spend half an hour a week out here.” It’s going to be a weed fest in no time.

There’s always a level of maintenance.

Anything else that you think is really important to landscape design that we haven’t touched on?

Pruning is a very important aspect of landscape. Having things properly pruned to avoid diseases, to avoid just negative forming of plantings or trees or whatnot is very important. And it's something that I don't think there's enough value given to that.

Also, hardscaping, it's tough in our climate because the freeze/thaw cycles and the ground shifting, you know, like people say, “Well, I don't want to do paving stones because they’ll move.”

But I always say, “Well concrete will crack, plants will die.” We can do our best, but we do live in a very harsh climate for even the hardscape, not just the plant material, right, not just the living things.

Obviously there’s proper building methods that have been established particularly for our freeze/thaw cycles. And you want to have that done to the specification that the different manufacturers will set out for the products so you're not going to have to fix it in five years.

Same with the plant material. What happens is we get minus 30, everything goes dormant and then we get a chinook. Plants are thinking, “Oh, it’s springtime,” and they start to come out of dormancy and then …

Slam

Exactly. If they're not well established in the root system, that shift will just kill them, that’s winter shock. If they're established, they'll be able to survive it.

I always say I’m the crazy lady in the neighbourhood because I'm watering my plans in November or sometimes in February. If you keep them moist, they'll stay frozen. Even though the temperature outside fluctuates, if they have enough ice, frozen roots, then they'll stay dormant.

I didn't understand what the actual challenge became, so that was really helpful. I'm also curious to know little more about María. I’m curious, what are you reading right now?

Well, you're going to laugh, but I'm reading a book on tango, the History of Argentine Tango. I got into tango a few years ago and I just love it. It's part of our roots, and nobody in my family ever danced tango. In Argentina, you hear it all the time.

I started maybe five or six years ago, and I got so into it. Every time I go to Buenos Aires, I take a bunch of classes and I go out to tango dance.

I ordered this book on the History of Tango and I’m reading about how tango came about and revolutionized some of the dancing in Argentina.

Awesome. That's really fun.

I do read a lot in Spanish. Like from our Argentinian writers, or Columbians, or Spanish, but like in my native language, I guess, I read a lot of just novels in Spanish.

How many languages do you have?

Spanish is my first language, I speak that fluently. I can get by with French. I used to be fluent, but I just haven't practiced it in forever. I went to school in Quebec. I did this exchange where I worked in Quebec at a daycare, so I totally learned with the kids. They would correct me all the time.

And then, I did volunteer when I was younger in Benin in West Africa, and it is a western colony. The only way I could communicate was in French. When I speak, most people say they think it's kind of funny because I speak French with an African accent.

Do you go on service trips fairly regularly?

That’s essential to me. I loved my last trip to Cambodia. It had been on my list for some time. Cambodia has a terrible, terrible sort of history and 40 percent of the Cambodian population is under the age of 16 years old.

Forty?

Forty, yeah.

Wow. I didn’t know that.

It's one of the poorest countries in Asia, and it's so many children.

What I did when I was there, I volunteered at Le Restaurant des Enfants, like The Children’s Restaurant. We would provide essentially meals, baths, or hygiene, or any kind of medical requirements that they need for kids that lived on the streets that were essentially kind of homeless. A lot of them live on the outskirts of the city, just in the slums.

Most of them either don’t have parents, or they go to an uncle, or an aunt, a grandparent. So we would get volunteer rickshaws, and they would go grab the kids and they would come in, or the kids would walk in from the street and they would just come eat. They get three meals, we give them baths, cut their nails, play with them. Just sort of be their support, right.

Wow

It was busy. That was my last trip. And I promised the kids I was going to go back, and I just haven’t been able to. As soon as I can, I’ll be on a plane to go again.

They fill my heart in a way that, I don’t know, it's priceless.

But you love it?

I love it.

So, at the end of the day is it red or white wine?

Red Malbec from Mendoza. That’s where we grew up, in Mendoza.

How about food. Do you have a favourite restaurant in Calgary?

Oh, it's been so long. I mean, Teatro is just a beautiful place.

Oh, I agree. Okay, one plant. If you could have one plant forever, what would it be?

One plant?

One plant.

I would say a trembling aspen tree. Well, there's lots of interesting things about trembling aspens.

One is they’re native to Alberta. I love that they have a beautiful yellow fall colour. Their bark, as it matures, goes lighter and white, so it's very attractive. I like it that it's not perfect, it's very irregular, and that’s why they’re called trembling or quaking aspens, right. And when the wind hits their leaves, they make that trickling sound.

I actually have like a little forest of them. And I have them very close together with a light underneath. I just find them so peaceful and almost meditative. If I'm in the garden I'm just staring at the aspens.