I received much of my early training (and numerous continuing-education credits) in life skills from the School of Hard Knocks. I learned my various horticulture-related skills from the inside out by working with clients throughout California and the rest of the country for over 25 years. During that time I’ve taken on design projects of all sizes, shapes and textures—water gardens, paths and patios, elegant arbors, habitat gardens, innovative home playgrounds, outdoor barbecue areas, deer-resistant gardens and landscapes and low-profile and attractive deer fences, to name just a few.
In the late 1970s, with only a high school diploma to my credit, I wrote a big fat book which has become a classic in its field and helped to define the genera of gardening now known as edible landscaping. It’s precisely because I had no formal college training in horticulture that I was able to envision and interpret this new interdisciplinary and original approach to gardening and landscaping. Although I’ve focused primarily on organic, natural, sustainable, integrated systems, permaculture and appropriate horticulture methods, as a result of my continual on-the-job training I’ve become handy at (and sometimes considered an authority on) a host of garden/landscape-related skills (see other buttons on this site). And I’m still trying to graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.
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