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When it comes to landscaping, a common mistake gardeners make is not looking at the big picture, says Jean Westcott, landscape designer and owner of The Artful Gardener on Mt. Hope Avenue in Rochester.
Gardeners often like to buy accessories such as a gazing globe or a new pot, but it’s important for a gardener to see the whole picture when adding ornaments to the garden, she says.
Westcott will be speaking about “Ornaments in the Garden — A Designer’s Perspective” at the Rochester Civic Garden Center’s 23rd annual spring symposium March 1 at the Memorial Art Gallery. Westcott will be joined by garden author and designer Julie Moir Messervy, who will talk about her book Landscape Ideas that Work (Taunton Press $21.95). Moir Messervy is well-known for her work on the Toronto Music Garden.
Westcott worked as a landscape designer in Philadelphia and New Jersey for many years before moving to Rochester eight years ago after her husband, Mark, got a new job.
The couple moved to the Highland Park neighborhood, and Westcott fell in love with history of the neighborhood as well as the landscape and architecture of the area.
She and her husband often would walk by a little floral shop at 727 Mt. Hope Ave. and admire the whimsical building.
As luck would have it, the building became available for sale in 2008. Westcott took a leap of faith and bought it, transforming the building that was in need of TLC into a garden retail shop.
“After 20 years of designing gardens, I still wanted to do that, but I also wanted to do something different,” Westcott says.
She tapped her savings and spent a year with contractors fixing the building, adding a staircase to create an office studio and brightening the retail space. Since it was 2009 and the economy was struggling, Westcott was able to hire contractors affordably.
“In a better economy, I couldn’t have done it,” she says.
The Artful Gardener opened on May 8, 2010, with a focus on hard-to-find garden accessories, as well as gifts.
“I knew I wanted to sell things that couldn’t be found in garden centers,” Westcott says.
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