Richie Steffen, expert on integrating art in the landscape offered a lecture at the recent Pacific Horticulture Symposium in Pasadena, California that reminded all of us just how the garden can contain art or become a piece of art itself. In the desperate pursuit of fame and fortune encouraged by our consumer society so many of the finer aspects of our culture and life are falling by the wayside. The arts and those aspects of human creativity that are being displaced by the need for material acquisition are leaving people with a growing need for something more than physical comforts to nourish the heart and soul. You can create your own home retreat to lift your spirits and put back the missing creativity in your life by making your garden a place of art. Whether you add art to your garden with murals, statues, décor, ornamental surfaces or make your garden into art with creative structures or design with plants.  Steve encourages us all to look at the garden as not only a place to entertain or to use for practical applications like pets, growing edibles and play, but as a place to have fun, add healing, therapy and joy to daily life. Enjoying art in the garden and the garden as art can make your landscape into a very important part of your life.