The full title of Celeste Lai’s whimsical animated short is The Man Who Once Owned An Eternal Garden. It’s about a man who loves his garden dearly, but he’s not blessed with a green thumb, and doesn’t really have a sense of the changing seasons. This leads to some spotty horticultural results.

Lai uses a playful mix of different media and animation styles to give a rich texture to her work. A native of Taiwan, she’s now based in New York, working as an independent animator, and frequently illustrates lectures for the TedEd series. Visit her website at http://www.celestelai.com/