Providing expert Arboricultural and Landscape advising for everyone!

I started in the Tree business over 30 years ago and learned the "ropes" working with my uncle when I was just 17 years old. While I did enjoy the work, I didn't see myself as a "Tree Surgeon", so I left the business and explored other jobs and trades. I soon found myself missing the experience of working outside and with plants. After working many seasonal jobs in the green industry; landscaping & lawncare, nursery manager, garden center and greenhouse even floral, I realized that I'd be workin...

I started in the Tree business over 30 years ago and learned the "ropes" working with my uncle when I was just 17 years old. While I did enjoy the work, I didn't see myself as a "Tree Surgeon", so I left the business and explored other jobs and trades. I soon found myself missing the experience of working outside and with plants. After working many seasonal jobs in the green industry; landscaping & lawncare, nursery manager, garden center and greenhouse even floral, I realized that I'd be working with plants for the rest of my life. Up to this point I had had no formal Education in horticulture or Arboriculture. I knew that I couldn't just be a laborer forever, so I decided I wanted to be a Landscape designer to design outdoor living spaces with plants! What an exciting career right? I paid for some correspondence courses. This was way back when it was all through the mail. I learned how to analyze and prepare a site and draw plans using different types of plants and some hardscape elements I could "design nature! I decided to go into business for myself. While I loved designing and building and maintaining I knew I was missing something. Because I tried to do everything myself it became too much. Between doing what I loved which was creating with plants and juggling the business end I became burned out. So, after just a couple years I hung it up. I then turned back to formal education to see if I could recoup some of my motivation. It worked! I began working on an associate degree in Landscape Management. You see I was still very interested in Landscape design and began delving deeper into plant knowledge and soon learned that all the things I had been taught to do in Landscaping were very wrong. The landscape and tree care business model while great for business was very bad for plant health. Some of the practices that had been passed down were wrong. The mythologies and misinformation were like a "dirty secret". I wasn't sure at the time, but I heard my calling. I had to improve the business by finding ways to do it right for the sake of plants! Then something remarkable happened! I took a course on tree care practices using the ISA study Guide as a textbook. This was the book Arborists used to study for the test to become International Society of Arboriculture Certified. I did so well in the course I decided to take the test and I passed on the first Try! I graduated then spent the next 10 years in vegetation management for electric utilities.