the constant gardener

​I fell in love with gardening at age seven when I buried naked lady bulbs on the side of my family's Pasadena bungalow, and one day, long stalks of pink, bell-shaped flowers popped out of the ground like magic. My first actual landscaping gig was in the summer of 1999 while apprenticing with a landscape designer. In 2002, I graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a B.S. in Urban and Regional Planning and a minor in Regenerative Studies—a unique approach to sustainability studies, which emphasizes ecological and social regeneration. During my studies, I took courses on sustainable farming and design practices and lived at the John T. Lyle Center for Regenerative Studies, along with a community of students who grew food, cooked, and communed together. For a decade, afterward, I worked in the non-profit housing industry, all the while maintaining my own home garden. Recently, I took a leap into another creative field, receiving an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California in 2015. During graduate school I worked, part-time landscaping jobs, thereby returning to my first love—gardening. In the summer of 2015, I decided to go out on my own to provide skilled landscaping services to those who may not be able to afford a larger company. Currently, I am working toward a Landscape Construction and Design Certificate from the Merritt College Landscape Horticulture program. I am proud to have been an Oakland resident since 2006.