About Anne Taylor

Sometimes finding your true calling in life is a total accident.

Having established my three boys into the school system, and living in a new residence, I found I had a little free time to putter in the garden, I had drawn sketches and schemes up and dug and planted, learned about drainage and tree roots, lugged rocks, poured cement, (I even went back and changed the drawings around once) but finally my plan had been completed. I realized that although I actually enjoyed the work of both drawing and digging, “free time” is truly not paid time.

Maybe it was time to go find a job.

Problem was, my pre baby vocation title was ‘draughtsman’ and in the few years, while I was folding the odd million diapers, Cad (computer aided drafting) had taken over.

I called a friend who was a landscape architect, and asked him if he knew how I could go about finding someone who might need a (slightly archaic) professional draftsman.

He dropped over to chat, and as we walked around the yard I explained how the raw construction site I’d inherited had somehow inspired me to create a setting for my garden ‘puttering.’ I must have looked desperate, or he must have been impressed because he hired me right there.

I started the next day.

Thus began my adventures in drawing landscapes, learning a ton of Latin names, measuring, drawing construction details, learning, researching, and rendering, more learning, and then actually getting a pay check.

Now I’m not that quick, this process took 14 years (except for the pay checks), but I had a hand in designing  not only commercial, industrial, and multifamily but water parks, trails and  nature-scapes.

Just when I had the hang of it, and I’d gotten into the real fun stuff like making scale models of subdivisions, the architect’s office was shutting down and the principals retiring.

I knew there were more things to do out there. I wanted to learn more.

Off to Garden Works I went.  I knew a retail center could teach me things like products, perennials and plants I was less familiar with.

Having a chance to do a little design work in my spare time, I realized how inspirational other garden-wise allies can be. Theresa was a real source of knowledge.

I changed employers to go with Theresa to a new store,  building the garden center from the ground up -  we were both keen on setting a high standard for helping folks with landscaping dilemmas.  We are passionate about our field, but working in retail is, well, - working in retail. Especially at Christmas, something about selling dead plants (even if they were Christmas trees), wasn’t doing it for me anymore. Luckily, Theresa felt the same way.  We needed to rise to the occasion and do what we do best.....solve problems. Folks will always have house and garden dilemmas, what if we gave people “landscape solutions?”

On that point we realized we could provide a great service for customers, and maybe offer our experience and knowledge in our own unique way.

We could take their garden problems and make them Good to Grow...