Kenton J. Seth

Kenton J. Seth is a Colorado-based garden designer and co-author, with Paul Spriggs, of The Crevice Garden, published by Filbert Press in 2022.

Born and based in Grand Junction in Western Colorado, Kenton trained in studio art and spent ten years working in public horticulture and the nursery trade before founding his design practice, Paintbrush Gardens, in 2013. He has since built more than fifty gardens in private homes, public parks and botanic institutions across the United States and overseas.

His work focuses on three overlapping specialities: gardens that elevate and host special plants in novel ways inspired by natural rocky places; meadows that provide habitat, forage and beauty with low input; and unirrigated native plantings designed for the dry American West, that thrive without regular watering, chemicals or landscape fabric. He runs his own small nursery, using net-zero greenhouses to grow species that are hard to source elsewhere.

Kenton writes for local, national and international gardening magazines — including Fine Gardening, the Garden Design Journal and the North American Rock Garden Society Quarterly — and has appeared in The New York Times in conversation with Margaret Roach. He lectures regularly to rock garden clubs and horticultural societies, from the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon to Garden Masterclass with Noel Kingsbury.

His blog, kentonjseth.blogspot.com, documents his projects, plants and travels.