I'm a Landscape Maintainer ("Gardener") because helping home owners enjoy their landscapes is meaningful work. I know a reputable Landscape Designer in Fruita if you need formal design plans and help selecting native plants suitable for this high-desert region.

I'm not a Master Gardener or a Plant Biologist. I've been "learning by doing", and I continuously seek out knew opportunities to learn more. I've built school gardens and xeriscape-designed and landscaped three personal properties from plants, trees, edging, and aggregate (you're welcome to see my homes!). The only features I haven't installed are irrigation lines, but I can communicate with your Irrigation Specialist.

My Roots

At the age of 12, I was an employee of my mom's family-owned landscaping & cleaning business where I worked weekends and gained a strong work ethic. Cleaning the homes of wealthy professional in Blackhawk and North Berkeley, California taught me to be detail-oriented. Performing common landscape maintenance tasks for that same clientele inspired my love of laboring outdoors.

As an adult, I gained a deep appreciation for native plants when I worked as a volunteer with the local nonprofit that built and maintained elementary school gardens and Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Native Plant Nursery, which supplied the native plants for various community gardens and tree planting initiatives in Newark, California.

• "Redneck" (R&R) landscaping—I believe in Resiliant lanscapes that hold up to weeds over long periods of time. I encourage being Resourceful, repurposing existing materials that you have onsite and obtaining free materials in the community, including free mulch, seeds, cardboard, sand, and small boulders.

• Sustainable maintenance and budget-wise landscapes—As you know, xeriscape doesn't mean ZERO maintenance, but one can make xeriscape choices to minimize maintenance over time. While you're xeriscape-designing your landscape, choosing plants for water efficiency, beauty, and biodiversity, consider how you'll maintain those landscapes that bring you joy.

• Fluid softscape—I like wild, voluptuous, imperfect, park-like landscapes. I like clean hardscape lines, but fluid ("messy") softscape. Life isn't fixed, so why should softscape? Softscape is a canvas that you paint over, moving and adding plants as your interests change or as you discover new plants. I believe you can have such a beautiful playground without increasing maintenance over time.

• Weed eradication—I have a zero-tolerance for weeds, including bindweed and crab grass where I'm bias toward complete eradication by removing the weeds' taproots. I've seen xeriscape landscapes that look awesome the first two years, but go into disrepair from bindweed and elm infestation. Yes, manual eradication is time consuming, but it's cost effective over the long-run.