On a beautiful Saturday morning, a dozen of RINLA’s Registered Apprentices gathered on the east side of Providence at the headquarters of RAM Design, the fine gardening design and maintenance company headed by Robert Alan Matthews. Bob showed us around his garden and showed us photographs and design drawings demonstrating its transformation over the last 20 years. He talked about his design process, site considerations, some of the challenges and benefits of working in smaller, urban gardens, and some tips for working with clients effectively. Bob also put together a plant identification activity with dozens of the plants in his garden being numbered before our arrival. He gave us each a list of all the plants and our challenge was to go around and match the numbers to the list. The prize for one of our lucky (and knowledgeable) apprentices was a copy of Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, generously provided by Bob.
Check out RAM Design at http://robertalanmatthews.com/
Written by Jordan Miller
Photographs by Jordan Miller