Jennifer is a design junkie and wants you to know the joys of the card-carrying plant geek and absolute love of food that has driven her through two decades in the garden business.

Growing up through her mid-twenties in Vermont, her early childhood was spent in the Northeast Kingdom – five minutes from Canada and ten minutes from New Hampshire. That meant moose, deer and bear in the backyard and raising raccoons, skunks and every farm animal under the sun including Morgan horses, which she continues to raise to this day.

After working in her chosen profession of animal science and realizing she needed to express her design creativity, she began artistically customizing miniature landscapes in containers for commercial customers. Within a year, she was managing crews.

In the mid-90s, she helped a couple of friends move to Santa Fe where she found that the desert, while challenging in new ways, offers year-round opportunities for the landscape designer. Still living in Vermont, that following summer came the straw that broke the camel s back. As Jen puts it, It was June 1st and there were reports of a potential frost to come that night. Did I say it was June? The snowstorm showed up as promised and dumped 8″ of snow. My tomatoes were crushed under the frost cloth I had put on them to protect them. It wasn t long before I became a permanent resident of Santa Fe.

Plants have the ability to tie spaces together, make one heck of a statement in a mere container and put dinner on the table, says Jen. Her love of plants developed at an early age and was inspired partly by her gourmet mother. At big meals, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, she would literally introduce the food as she put it on the table. Here is the herb-encrusted leg of lamb with a yummy balsamic reduction and fresh green beans with prosciutto and lemon butter . Our friends thought eating at our house was like going to a five-star restaurant.

Jen describes her design style as casual to edgy modern. Think Scottsdale, but don’t forget my roots. In Vermont, the English style garden predominates. Out here I call it Southwest Cottage Style – a drought-tolerant explosion of color! A little continuity goes a long way in creating great stylized spaces, whether it s your yard or a well set dinner table.