Stephen Block, owner of Inner Gardens, and the Inner Gardens team recently hosted a book-signing event, celebrating the publication of Scott Shrader’s book, The Art of Outdoor Living.  

Scott Shrader is Fire. Using this term to describe Mr. Shrader is apt, for in any exterior landscape or garden he creates, there is the element of not only the traditionally understood concepts or presence of a fire pit, a fireplace or a pizza oven, but there is the profound presence of the force of nature. Mr. Shrader is a force of nature.

Scott Shrader is Wind. His sylvan creations are anything but static. Even when employing traditional elements such as boxwood grids and privet hedges, one will notice movement when looking at a bush or tree allowed to mature in the state nature intended. Growth occurs as a time-honored ancient source of energy within the framework of his forecasts.

Scott Shrader is Water. In all of his spaces, there is the presence of water, which is to say there is a constant reminder of the well of life. Through our senses, one sees, hears and even smells our connection to life beyond our mere selves, which in turn transports us to an elevated plane of living.  

Mr. Shrader’s first book, The Art of Outdoor Living, is beautiful, timely and instructive, and it allows the reader to step into a tactile world of not only shape, color and form, but a world where one can come out of doors into a different realm of reality, a living one that in our time is truly a gift of life to be relished and enjoyed.

Photography by Lisa Romerein