"You look at this landscape, and it goes deeper than what you see...It reminds you of something in the genes...NATURE, or the longing for nature.."

Piet Oudolf, 2008

This quote from Piet Oudolf, one of the leading voices in naturalistic garden design, has been a guiding influence throughout my career. He is describing the feeling of spending time in Hummelo, his garden in the Netherlands.

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When I led a team at Duke Gardens to design and build the prairie landscape pictured above, our goal was to create a place that would leave visitors with that same sense of connection to the natural world. During my thirty years as a landscape contractor and twenty years spent in the botanical garden profession, I carried that goal into every project I designed. Today, I've found a rewarding new chapter as a landscape architect.

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At S3 Design, I continue to create landscapes that connect people with nature and transform the spaces where they live, work and play.

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— Stefan Bloodworth, 2024