Background
Raymond was born Dale Louis McKinley in Erie, Pennsylvania, on March 23, 1954.
Raymond was born Dale Louis McKinley in Erie, Pennsylvania, on March 23, 1954.
He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from Lehigh University, and attended medical school for two years. He then studied music, obtaining two more Bachelor of Arts degrees, in piano and in voice, from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University.
He has consulted on residential, resort, and exhibition garden and landscape design in the United States and abroad. He has been interested in plants and gardens since pre-school. He performed as an opera singer in greater Washington, District of Columbia, and then, under management, in New York City, where he adopted the stage name of Louis Raymond.
By the mid-1980s, Raymond had retired from the stage to concentrate on garden design.
In addition to his ongoing practice in garden design and landscape design, Raymond has been active in many flowershows. He was the show designer—the head of exhibition gardens—for the Boston flowershow for six years, when it was under the auspices of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.
He has judged at the Boston, Philadelphia, and Worcester flowershows. He has exhibited at the Newport, Rhode Island, and Providence, Rhode Island, flowershows.
He continues to lecture widely on horticulture, the history of garden and landscape design and their intersection with popular culture, and his own projects and personal gardens.
Foreign over fifteen years, Raymond has been active in the Southside Community Land Trust, a Providence-based organization that champions urban agriculture. He has been Board President for five years.