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Blending rocks and plants
By Marisa de Silva
How does your garden grow? It may not have silver bells and cockleshells, but ingenious green-fingered landscapists are now making a fine art of gardening.
The awards ceremony of the Home Garden Competition by the Landscapists' Association of Sri Lanka (LASL) was held last month at the Centre for Housing, Planning and Building in Kotte. Awards were given for the best landscaped garden, environment and courtyard.

Winner of the Best Landscaped Environment Award, Nimali D. Jayasingha, had two reasons to celebrate on that day, as it was her birthday as well. Interested in landscaping since she was a teen, nature lover Nimali began by landscaping sections of her own garden, designing a little rock garden and bridge. She worked as a professional landscapist in the Middle East for a while, and now plans to start a joint venture to export plants and foliage from Sri Lanka to the Middle East.

Her winning entry was her home garden off Rajagiriya, where she claims the soil is naturally fertile. She also prefers to enhance what's already there through artful pruning rather than spend a lot of money on doing up her garden.
Lawyer Ajitha Edirimanne followed the course conducted by the LASL and put into practice what she learnt at home.

Winner of the best landscaped garden award, Ajitha says she learnt about soft landscaping (which deals mostly with plants) and hard landscaping (which deals with structures, murals and rock gardens etc.) and how to balance and blend them both.
She says that although she has done a few landscaping and interior decorating jobs for friends and family, she has never earned an income from it. "It's just something I do to take a break from everyday work."

At 'Wind Waves', her home in Kelaniya, she tries to have everything in keeping with its name, even designing curved borders. The contest was open to members of the LASL and students who underwent the landscaping course conducted by the Association. Pushpa Gunawardena and Hema Weerasinghe won second and third place in the Best Landscaped Garden category.

Srima Seneviratne won the Best Landscaped Courtyard and three commendable entry certificates were given to Kusum Perera, Shafinaaz Siddeeque and Nirmala Wijeyanandena.

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