Hello!

Welcome to my Garden Coaching website! I imagine you are here because you have a garden you love and would like to improve it. Or maybe it’s a garden you don’t love so much, but would like to. Perhaps you want to become a better gardener or have one or more projects in mind, but don't know quite where to begin. You probably want to do most if not all the work yourself, but you want to do it right and need some advice. I am here to coach you through with as much or as little assistance as you need.

My love for plants and gardens was propagated by my father who got me out in the yard with him almost every weekend when I was a young boy. We lived in the Berkeley hills where summer mornings were often foggy and winter days chilly. The loamy clay soil felt moist and rich in my hands. Some of my fondest memories with my dad include pruning his oddly shaped Yew tree, helping him set the stepping stones that led to the new bird bath, and the frequent visits to Berkeley Hort where I'd get completely lost, wandering up and down the gravel paths between plants of amazing color and variety!

Many years later, married, and recently moved into a house in the Oakland hills, my father helped me design and landscape the large yard. We began by hiring a herd of goats to eat back the blackberry and acacia that grew to the house’s very foundation. Much of what we originally planted in the early 1980’s has matured, much has been re-designed or even replaced. Terraces, rock and masonry walls, split-rail fences, paths, irrigation systems, raised beds, vegetable gardens, solar bird baths, decks and trellises, fountains, flagstone patios, lawns and benches. Digging, amending, sowing, planting, fertilizing, pruning, watering, mowing, transplanting, weeding and more weeding. Over the years caring for our garden has been quite an education in and of itself, along with extensive reading and research, attending workshops, wandering the arboretum, taking garden tours, and for the last 2 years working at The Watershed Nursery as a Retail Sales Manager and general infrastructure handyman. What began as a passing interest in native California plants has grown into a well informed passion (thanks in part to The Watershed Nursery’s specialization in 9-Bay Area County natives) and has become a personal touchstone for plant selection in our home garden as well as for my valued clients.

Contact me for advice on beautifying your garden and honing your gardening skills!

“Jeff is responsible for the beautiful demonstration gardens at The Watershed Nursery. He has a keen eye for aesthetics as well as an understanding of companion planting of California native plants as they would be displayed by Mother Nature. His combined knowledge and expertise in native plants as well as cultivars and other lovely garden plants gives him a broad pallet to work with and a useful toolkit to help you achieve your garden goals.”
-- Laura Hanson
Owner, The Watershed Nursery
“Dear Jeff,

I found our meeting and conversation to be very useful in moving me forward on my many garden projects! Good ideas, good listening skills, good suggestions, and completely non-judgmental. I never sensed you were criticizing what I had done in my garden. You captured exactly what I was looking for in terms of seasonal change, variety, and my interests in color, texture, and structure, to which you added scale (that I had somehow never thought to consider…and you were so right!). You also hit the nail on the head with your observation that my garden seems to lack cohesiveness. Now I can make changes with that goal in mind.

You really motivated me! In just one day I've already made many of the changes we discussed! I’ve moved the penstemon, pruned the ceanothus, and removed the overgrown, exotic nasturtium (thanks for the nudge on that). At last I planted the bee plants and sticky cinquefoil, too. I just didn’t know where to put them, but your knowledgeable opinion about where in my garden they’ll likely thrive was just the ticket. Finally, per your advice, I moved the coyote mint from back to front to augment the "fragrance garden" (which you so aptly perceived).

Tomorrow I’ll stop by the nursery you recommended to check availability and hopefully cross a few purchases off the list you helped me create. I didn’t even realize there was a nursery nearby that carried these species!

Thanks ever so much for spending a couple of hours coaching me and my garden! ”
Carol B.
Berkeley