My Background - Traveling Down the Garden Path
I grew up in Ohio where I received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Botany from Ohio University. After graduation from Ohio University I moved to Olympia, Washington and started Gardeners and Growers, a landscape construction and maintenance business. After six years, I sold the business and entered graduate school, and received a Master's Degree in Environmental Studies from Evergreen State College. My thesis work was on Landscaping with Pacific Northwest Native Plants. While I attended graduate school, I held the position of adjunct faculty in the Horticulture Program at Puget Sound Community College. I taught a variety of courses: Plant Identification I and II, Soils and Plant Nutrition, Integrated Pest Management I and II, Plant Propagation, and Landscape Design.
In 1998, I started Gardens by Design and my adventure as a landscape designer. In 1999, I began to write a garden column 'The South Sound Gardener', which is published in The Olympian in the Saturday's Home and Garden insert.