I'm currently serving on the APLD (Association of Professional Landscape Designers) Board.  What an honor to participate in such an amazing organization!

I'm a registered landscape architect in the state of Iowa.

I love to teach (especially when I get to unravel the mysteries of landscape design). 

I'm crazy excited about two recent teaching awards I received from Iowa State University:  Award for Early Achievement in Teaching (University-wide) and the Award for Excellence in Teaching by Lecturers and Adjunct Faculty (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences). Yeah!

I love to use my drawings to teach (it lightens up many topics).

My blogging career began at The Lunch Box Project...my goal was to create one food illustration each day for a year in 2009.  I then continued this adventure until my shift to garden design in early 2014. 

I've had the pleasure of creating illustrations for fabulous clients such as Garden Design Magazine, Jarlsberg Cheese, KitchenPlay, Smitten Ice Cream, Kestrel Design Group and many other amazing food and garden blogs.

I love giving presentations and recently had the opportunity to speak at the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival (Wow!).

I love photography, but am really new at it (but feel the desire to take lots of garden photos that will pop up here and there on this site). You can explore my photographic ramblings on Instagram.

I am crazy about peanut butter, ice cream and Claussen pickles.

I enjoy combining unrelated topics into fresh ideas...like peanut butter and jelly gardens. 

I love practicality with an unsuspected dose of whimsy.

I love perennials and am constantly seeking that perfect formula to combine them (it may not exist, but please don't take away this exciting challenge).

I am infatuated with the fringe of garden design...exploring new themes, new illustration styles and looking at gardens from unique vantage points (like through postcards and wedding photography).

My husband is over-the-top about everything (over 10,000 SF of vegetable gardens, one of the largest Redwing flower pot collections in the country, constantly building or remodeling something, and a math genius...these are all a benefit to me in many ways, for instance, he did build that cute orange shed in those pictures up there).

I have three amazing, smart and creative kids (don't we all?!).

I also have a sweet, wire-haired dachshund named Gunther (that's a pinch of humor each day).

We live in a 1916 house that my husband is currently remodeling and is slowly being engulfed by gardens (just give us a few more years to finish those).