Gardening has been a part of my life since high school, and I’ve been designing or fixing them  in some capacity that long as well. My favorite part of garden work is pruning for improvement  and sustainability. Regarding design styles, I’ve focused on learning about and implementing  Japanese inspired and Native Plant gardens.  

Over time, my interest in the rare and unusual plants has shifted to those that have proven  reliable and useful to the garden scene. While I’m open to utilizing new and useful plants, my  preference is to rely on my experience propagating, growing on, and working with the best  species possible for my region.  

With Middle Tennessee’s biodiversity rivaled only by the rainforest, it makes sense to use native  plants. Lots of plants aren’t widely known of, and their propagation and distribution could end  up helping some of them survive outside a limited local range. Habitat destruction for  whatever reason warrants at a minimum an effort to add native plants back to our system of  water, earth and air.

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Projects in pipeline and over past year include multiple flex-spaces designed with locally sourced and existing materials.  Plant Alchemy likes restoring derelict gardens and purpose driven spaces with novel design features and materials use.  Also up-cycling of older garden plants for creation of novel topiary and hedges at a farm the The Fontanel outside Nashville.