David Glenn is an Australian garden designer. He has been recognised as an early exponent of a new style of Dry Climate Gardening with perennials in Australia. His garden ''Lambley'' is located at Ascot, 12 km North of

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...

in Victoria, Australia. The development of the garden coincided with the millennial drought experienced throughout much of Eastern Australia over the period 2000 to 2010 and earlier. At the time, the garden was recognised internationally for its innovative use of plant types and forms. It was represented as one of the first really considered responses to the challenges of gardening in the Australian climate without resorting to native plantings. Glenn is acknowledged in some texts for developing the exemplar for dry climate gardening in the southern hemisphere. The noted Australian designer

Paul Bangay Paul Bangay is an Australian landscape designer. Bangay's designs have been noted for their "precise angles, perfect symmetry, strong sight lines and rich detail." Awards In 2001, Bangay received the Centenary Medal for outstanding achievement ...

has described Lambley as "One of the most famous" dry perennial gardens in the world, while New Zealand Gardener magazine has described Lambley as "one of the best examples of gardening with perennials" in the world. The Dry Garden at Lambley

A number of references cite the influence of Glenn's artist wife Criss Canning's instinct for 'shape, texture and colour' in the success of the garden while noting that Canning does not do the physical work of gardening.

Early life

Glenn was born in the United Kingdom to a family with a history of gardening. He emigrated to Australia in the 1960s. David and his still-life painter wife, Criss Canning, established Lambley in 1987. Prior to this time Glenn conducted a wholesale plant nursery at

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Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

's,

Dandenong Ranges The Dandenong Ranges (commonly just The Dandenongs) are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The ranges consist mostly of rolling hills, steeply weathere ...

. The name of the garden refers to Glenn's childhood home, Lambley Village in Nottinghamshire in the east midlands region of England in the United Kingdom.

Plant breeding

Plants selected by Glenn are grown throughout the world. The patented Euphorbia x martini 'Ascot Rainbow' is to be found in gardens throughout Europe and the United States where it is grown for its frost tolerance and intense variegation which is said to be quite unmatched in the Genus. The plant featured on the cover of the Royal Horticultural Society journal '

The Plantsman ''The Plant Review'', published quarterly by the Royal Horticultural Society, is a 68-page magazineAgastache 'Sweet Lili' has been lauded by Australian garden designers as a 'superlative new selection'

has written of the same plant, "I use this in all my gardens as it is such a long-flowering plant and has a very distinct and unusual flower colour".

Design Approaches

Glenn's approach to garden design is characterised as fluid by some references. The highly regarded Australian gardening writer Michael McCoy cites an instance in which Glenn confessed his frustration with garden writers, "that built whole articles around ideas they'd had for planting combinations, when it was his experience...that most ideas don't work, or need very substantial fine-tuning or reconfiguring before they can be made to work. At very best they lead to an idea that does work". At the same time, other reports describe Glenn as an advocate for 'discipline' when organising garden beds. A central idea is described as "creating a series of vertical accents in the horizontal design space". Also the inclusion in any garden of quiet green spaces to 'rest the eye' has been highlighted as a core principle in any Glenn garden. One aspect that differentiates Glenn's approach from other Australian designers is his extensive use of bulbous plants. Glenn has written of his success with bulbs in the climate of inland south-eastern Australia. In one instance Glenn has written of bulbs from Turkey which are planted in his garden that "prefer to be dry during summer, the drier the better".

Plant selection

Glenn has been distinguished in some texts on Australian Garden Design schools of thought because of the breadth of his plant selection palette. He was quoted on

Gardenista Gardenista is an outdoor spaces and garden design website operated by Remodelista LLC. It was founded in 2011 by Julie Carlson and Michelle Slatalla initially as a section of Remodelista, and then as a separate entity in 2012. The company is based ...

as saying, "I choose plants because of their beauty, and because I want to make a beautiful garden...I don't want to make a political statement". The latter being a reference to what he refers to as a "rather intolerant horticultural chauvinism" owards non-native plantsexhibited by Australian garden designers.

Lambley Gardens

David Glenn's garden has been widely lauded as a 'dynamic' and exciting work where Glenn's design principles find their fullest expression. One writer identifies a key design idea as the creation of a series of 'waves and fountains' in the garden. Other sources have identified the work as "a must-see for obsessive plant-aholics and anyone needing inspiration for gardening in Australia’s hot and dry climate”. In 2023 the gardens were open daily. In summer 2023 it was announced in the Australian media that the property was to be sold.

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20110902093929/http://www.lambley.com.au/garden_notes * http://www.crisscanning.com.au/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Glenn, David Year of birth missing (living people) Living people English expatriates in Australia Australian gardeners English gardeners Australian landscape or garden designers Landscape or garden designers Australian landscape architects People from Gedling (district)