Wild by Design

Home
Canada
Picton, ON
Wild by Design

Call Directions Website Contact the business

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Wild by Design, Landscape Company, 3070 County Road 8, Picton, ON.

Wild by Design is a garden design business owned by Ben O'Brien in Prince Edward County specializing in artfully crafted, richly planted, lovingly tended gardens.

10/11/2026

This Thanksgiving weekend I’m feeling thankful for the many clients who trust me with their landscapes and give me the freedom to learn and test ideas. At this garden in South Bay, the trust from the clients has resulted in an especially innovative ecological garden. Designed with a particular emphasis on the shoulder seasons, the autumn moment is the true crescendo.

10/08/2026

A seasonal reminder that the entrances to perfectly ordinary office buildings (or schools or churches or libraries or arenas or shopping malls or really any other building you can imagine) could look like this instead, and all with remarkably low levels of input. Asters, grasses and the beauty of decay all on display on a sunny autumn day.

09/17/2026

The gravel garden at the farm, on a luminous morning. Tipping into autumn with a late season burst of blazing star and oldfield goldenrod among the ripening grasses.

08/30/2026

Desperately trying to hold onto summer with a site visit from mid August. Peak Echinacea at this two year old garden, which survived last year’s drought and is happily soaking up this summer’s rain. Lovingly tended by Nicki Ramjass, and settling in nicely around a uniquely beautiful house. A shining example of what’s possible when you want to make the new feel old.

Landscape architecture: Helen Batten Basterfield & Associates Landscape Architecture
Landscape construction: Schoonhoven SLM
Stewardship: Nicki Ramjass
Architect: Harry Morison Lay Architect
Builder: John Winter Construction
Stone walls: John Shaw-Rimmington Mark Ricard

07/28/2026

Back to the dry meadow garden for some management and editing last week. Looking altogether more buoyant than during last summer’s drought, with butterfly milkweed, Echinacea pallida ‘Hula Dancer’, Eryngium yuccifolium and Pycnanthemum tenuifolium as the current stars. All humming with life.

This garden has been drier than I planned, due to compaction from construction and a thinner soil profile than planned. While it’s still a work in progress in some areas it’s also taking on its own dynamics as Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, Solidago rigida, Eryngium yuccifolium, Potentilla arguta, Asters, Silphium et al. begin to seed around and find their own places. The benefit of a very diverse mix of species is that at least a few will prove successful, even in less than ideal conditions, and point the way for future enhancements. Given how damp this site can be in spring, and how dry it is in summer, an alvar is a natural analogue and source for new species to add this fall. The surrounding former hayfield is likewise abuzz with activity and burying the new buildings in their landscape.

07/26/2026

A sparking summer morning at this sand meadow garden. A cosmopolitan mix of short dry-loving species, with Echinacea pallida ‘Hula Dancer’ and Eryngium planum ‘White Glitter’ in peak flower, tucked among a matrix of Schizachyrium ‘Standing Ovation’ and Sesleria ‘Greenlee’. Cared for by a keen client and Garden Reclamation.

07/23/2026

A lakeside meadow garden, enjoying its second summer in the sun. A much more forgiving growing season this year compared to last (smoke days aside), and it shows. A project collaboration with VTLA | Victoria Taylor Landscape Architect and David Wright.

07/11/2026

The barn gravel garden at East Lake Farm is a riotous romp of joyful colours and insect life as summer hits its peak. Butterfly milkweed, nodding onion, Gaillardia ‘Amber Wheels’, Echinacea pallida ‘Hula Dancer’, ‘Rosenkuppel’ ornamental oregano and the last gasps of Coreopsis lanceolata (of which we’ll have plentiful seed to share if you’re in the area and interested).

An experiment in resilience and drought tolerance, the garden is meant to be dynamic as species either drop out or proliferate. With much more yet to come. A bit of planting madness, contained, surrounded and elevated by a magnificent stone wall by and . Made of stones from the farm, the plentiful glacial till “hardheads” are now basking in the sun instead of lurking underground or in the fencerows.

07/02/2026

A rare summer afternoon in downtown Toronto today, for a bit of an explore around some parks, old(ish) and new by .inc, made for .to.

First to Corktown Common, which I haven’t visited in a few years. On one of the hottest days of the year the difference between the streetscape and the shady refuge of this immersive, and completely constructed, native landscape couldn’t have been more stark. Thanks to gardeners René and Leslie for the impromptu chat. Somewhat miraculously this park is cared for on a daily basis by a dedicated crew of 5, many of whom have cared for the place for multiple years and have developed a deep understanding of its dynamics.

Then to the newly opened Biidaasige Park in the Port Lands with Stefan, one of the landscape architects from MVVA. An extraordinarily ambitious project to create central parklands in what will be an entirely new neigbourhood on former industrial lands. The Don River has been re-routed through the park, with richly vegetated wetland plant communities and multi-layered gardens surrounding play areas and gathering places. A young and newly planted place, but if it receives the same attention and care (gardeners!) as Corktown Common, it will become something very very special.

Thanks to all for the time and conversations. Exciting and hopeful stuff 🌱

06/21/2026

Early summer in the garden at Birchcliff. Salvia ‘Rose Marvel’ is the star of the show, popping out amid the foliage of the yet-to-bloom perennials and grasses. This is meant to be a late summer garden, the time when the family all gathers here, but it doesn’t mean we’ve ignored June entirely.

The soft landings planting under the oaks are quieter now but there’s so much more life here than there used to be.

Landscape design:
Landscape construction:
Stone walls: and
Planting: me

Address

3070 County Road 8
Picton, ON
K0K2T0

Telephone

+16134385007

Website

http://www.wildbydesign.ca/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Wild by Design posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Wild by Design:

Want your business to be the top-listed contractor in Picton?