About me

I fell in love with growing plants when I was 18 and first moved to Ithaca NY, a beautiful agricultural community in the Finger Lakes region.

In our early years my husband Bill and I managed a landscape gardening business together, then I began a career as a horticultural educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE). I started at CCE Tioga where I managed a Master Gardener program, then moved to CCE Tompkins where I managed a community beautification program and later a community vegetable gardening program.

In between those jobs Bill and I moved to County Clare, Ireland for five years. We worked together again as landscape gardeners for a few years, then I took a job as manager at the Irish Seed Savers Association. We loved living in Ireland, and it is a dream climate for gardening!

We moved back to the Ithaca area in 2012 to be closer to our families, and after retiring from CCE in 2018 I have since returned to our landscape gardening  business with Bill, joyfully returning to gardens that we first planted together over 20 years ago.  We provide garden maintenance for a select number of clients, and I also provide consultation and design services to help other gardeners have the beautiful, ecologically-friendly gardens of their dreams.

I teach online courses through Cornell University School of Integrative Plant Science: Organic Gardening and Introduction to Garden Design. I feel very fortunate to be doing what I love!