Gardens by Design

My first hands-on experience with plants was disentangling myself and my sled from my mother’s hydrangeas.  I learned that day, past all doubt, that they only looked like a bunch of dead sticks.

 

While in high school I began vegetable gardening and learned about weeds and woodchucks.  I earned a B.A. in American history, and later an M.A. in teaching, both at Manhattanville College.  

 

I worked as a writer, covering primarily foreign travel and golf.  I grew fascinated by the architecture and flora of courses built in different design eras in different parts of the world.  I followed that interest into the broader world of landscape design and the use of plants, worked in a retail nursery, moved out into the field to run installation and maintenance crews, spent a year urban gardening in New York City, and began to design.

 

I formalized my learning at the New York Botanical Garden, gaining certification in Sustainable Garden Design.  Even as I take on new clients and create new designs, I continue my relationship with the NYBG as an instructor, teaching perennials, shrubs and trees with an emphasis on plants native to North America.