Design to Grow

My blogs

Blogs I follow

About me

Gender Female
Industry Agriculture
Location Illinois
Introduction My horticultural career began in my mother’s strawberry patch in Henry, IL, with an empty bucket and a mouth-watering desire for homemade jam. At age 16, I got my first ‘real’ job at Hornbaker Gardens, a perennial farm in nearby Princeton. I went to work weeding hosta beds, digging iris, dividing daylillies and pinching mums. Having been bitten by the greenthumb bug, I attended the University of Illinois and earned a degree in Ornamental Horticulture. I then married my wonderful husband and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where I worked for Zergott Landscaping, a design-build firm in the western suburbs. After moving back to Illinois, I took a full-time position as Mommy, while doing some freelance design on the side. Since then, I have written garden articles for Ornamentals & Edibles magazine and The Daily Journal in Kankakee, IL.