Meet Our Community: Claire Jones, garden traveler, designer, and bouquet maker

 

Let's get to know each other!

Since we're not able to meet up in person this year, let's meet online. Every week we're introducing a member* of our Fling community here and on Instagram, in their own words. We're excited to see what everyone's talking about and sharing with their followers!

(*Any garden blogger, vlogger, podcaster, or Instagrammer who follows our Instagram or is a member of our Facebook group. If you'd like to be considered or recommend someone for a Meet Our Community profile, email us.)

Claire Jones

Favorite design for a client: a healing labyrinth

I did not pop out of the womb with trowel in hand, but close to it. My first memories are of planting seeds, and I became a landscape designer after majoring in biology/botany at Towson University. I have done just about everything you can think of in the gardening sphere, and now my passion for nature and plants has transitioned into a passion to see other gardens around the world. While still managing my landscape design business and writing, I organize and lead tours with other curious gardeners to see the world. A full schedule awaits me in the next 18 months, and I will be traveling to France, Ireland, Portugal, and Amsterdam to see Floriade, the highly anticipated garden extravaganza held every 10 years.

#bouquetoftheday: pink pussy willow

My blog, The Garden Diaries, covers a wide range of garden-related topics: beekeeping, cooking, seed starting, native plants, garden travel, floral arranging. I am always outside photographing, weeding, working in my greenhouse, or planning new gardens for clients, and my posts follow my gardening-year activities.

As an avid flower arranger, and with more time at home due to COVID, I started #BouquetOfTheDay, a Facebook group of hundreds of people from around the world. Every day I forage in my garden, greenhouse, or along roadsides to create and photograph a bouquet. This creative exercise has made me look at my garden and environment in a whole new light. It’s also become a possible future book project for me to work on. Join me on Facebook and post your own creations.

Stone sofa at Chanticleer

I live in Baltimore County, Maryland, and within a few hours’ drive I can visit a varied and eclectic palette of gardens, including Longwood. My favorite is Chanticleer, which is a laboratory for cutting-edge gardening. And their sofa and armchair made entirely of stone, with accompanying stone remote control, is so fun! I learned about my favorite plant there: balloon plant, or hairy balls (Gomphocarpus physocarpus), a milkweed that monarch caterpillars adore. I use the puffy round pods for structure in floral arrangements, and the plant gets tons of comments in my garden.

Right now I am working on Zoom presentations, and my newest is called "Earth Stewardship: What You Can Do in Your Own Backyard." As gardeners, we have the responsibility and mission to change the world, one backyard at a time.

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Thanks for sharing your work and your gardening passions with us, Claire! You can follow Claire on her blog, The Garden Diaries, and on Facebook, Instagram, and her website, Claire Jones Landscapes.

Photographs courtesy of Claire Jones.