Hi I’m Samwise (they/them)!
I’m a queer nonbinary gardener, farmer, forager and herbalist based in Eastside Lansing. I provide garden maintenance services, design and plant planning, garden coaching and consulting.
I serve local gardeners with environmentally friendly practices: focusing on clients that are within cycling distance, limiting gasoline, waste and chemical use, and preferring organic, low-waste and local products and suppliers.
Let’s grow together.
About me
I studied organic horticulture at Colorado State University. I’ve worked on small, diversified and organic-in-practice farms for over 10 years in Colorado and Michigan, growing vegetables, fruits, flowers, culinary and medicinal herbs and pasture-raised eggs, dairy and meat. I’ve been gardening for nearly 20 years.
Since 2018 I have been focused on learning and practicing herbalism, foraging, gardening and permaculture design. Since 2021 I have been an organizer, designer, and gardener at Tender Heart Gardens, a queer and trans growing collective in Eastside Lansing. In 2025 I joined the Magnolia Ave Farm Collective, an urban produce, flower and herb collective farm in Eastside Lansing. I studied and earned a Permaculture Design Certificate, completed in fall 2024 at Findhorn Eco-village in Scotland.
My design style
The landscapes and gardens I design are customized for the site, the clients and their family, the way they want to use their property and to compliment the architecture of the home.
My design style blends traditional design and permaculture design to create beautiful, productive and sustainable landscapes. I enjoy designing different garden styles and applying permaculture design ethics and principles to create resilient and regenerative, low-input and low-work gardens that are productive and welcoming for the wildlife and humans that share the space.
I strive to use my ebike, walking, rideshare and the buses first over gasoline-powered transportation.
I value and strive to
- Use and refer local, environmentally friendly and low-waste producers and services, and the use of natural and recycled materials.
- Design and work for the integration of human and ecological and biological diversity, to benefit wildlife, soil microbes, pollinators, and humans.
- Integrate keystone native plants into my garden designs. These are native plants that have tight relationships with wildlife, and that create the most productive and sustainable habitat for wildlife.
- Limit (prefer to not use at all) gasoline-powered tools and transportation. Preferring wood and metal hand tools, natural alternatives, and foot, public, electric and pedal-powered transportation.
- Limit (prefer not to use at all) environmentally harmful herbicide/pesticide/insecticides. I prefer to use organic and natural control methods and biological controls such as integrated pest management and companion planting.