About

Hey, thanks for stopping by – very cool of you. I’m guessing if you’ve made your way here, either I’ve insulted your favorite combination of red and hot pink petunias and you want to know the fastest way of telling me off, or else you kind of dug one of my articles and want to know what I’m all about. Here goes:

What is North Coast Gardening?

This is the place to get my professional take on drool-worthy plants, garden tools, and the latest doings in the landscape design world. I’m a big fan of personalizing your garden so it reflects something special about you and the region in which you live, and I love learning about garden tricks and organic solutions that aren’t fiddly and stupid. (Like, um, beer and slugs? Really? There is no way I am picking frat boy slugs out of a disgusting bowl every morning.)

Who are you, anyway?

Well, to begin with, I’ve got “a bit of an attitude”, according to Sunset Magazine’s Jim McCausland. Amy Stewart of Garden Rant called me a “completely adorable person and lovely human being”. And also? My mommy told me, “I hope you don’t get any stalkers because you are so personable and attractive in those videos. LOL!!!” (Thanks, Mom!! Only a few so far!)

I write regularly for Fine Gardening Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, Landscaping Network, and Proven Winners plants, and my work’s appeared in numerous other publications (see below for the full list). In 2010 I was appointed to my city’s Design Review Commission, where I review landscaping plans for commercial and historic properties to help keep our city beautiful and distinct from anytown, USA.

Where’d I get my gardening chops? Well, for over 15 years I’ve run a landscape maintenance crew in charge of giving “garden facelifts” to my treasured clients (actually, just to their gardens), and I’m a landscape designer whose clients write poems about their gardens and send in photos of themselves jumping up and down in their front yards. Seriously? I have the best job in the world, and definitely the best clients.

In my off hours, I’m a crazy avid reader, a top Amazon.com reviewer, and since I’m both Polish and blonde, well – let’s just say I have a lot of trouble screwing in light bulbs. Luckily my partner Trevor is 6’5″, so he tackles all of that.

Where exactly do you live?

Um, it’s an unlisted address. I know you liked my garden videos, but please don’t come to my home.

Oh. Growing zone? I’m in Arcata, CA, home to more marijuana growers than college students, and since it’s a college town, that’s actually saying a lot. Arcata’s right on the coast amidst the Redwoods in far Northern California, just a couple hours from the Oregon border. I like it here, despite the near-constant waft of patchouli coming from my town square. (I don’t care if patchouli’s a plant. It smells like armpits!)

My growing zone seems to have more in common with Portland and Seattle than with L.A., so the traditional California gardening advice often falls flat here. It’s all the rain we get. (We get a lot.) USDA Zone 9-ish, but please don’t tell my tropicals.

What’s this whole website thingy about? Why are you doing this?

In my work, I meet people all the time, who think they can’t garden because someone sold them a stack of blooming “perennials”, that are actually annuals in our climate and are supposed to die the first year. When everything dies, they think they can’t do it, they have a brown thumb, that nothing looks right and gardening’s not at all what they imagined.

These people – you, me – we have something in our souls that needs expressing. Maybe we don’t feel we can draw, and our singing voice stinks. But plants? I mean, it’s hard to make a flower look ugly, previous jokes about red and pink petunias aside. And the fact that it’s our nurturing that allows this beauty to unfold, and our love that brings the hummingbirds and happy bees flocking – well, I just think gardening’s a vocation and a calling that goes far beyond just being a hobby.

If I can help my friends, clients, and the rest of the world get connected with good advice, that’s been tested in real gardens and has a scientific basis – well, I see no higher calling for a plant geek than that.

Anyway.

If you’d like to send me tokens of your devotion (cupcakes are especially appreciated) or invite me to write for your fine publication, drop me a line. As Amy and my mom have pointed out, I’m pretty cool. Especially when there is frosting involved.

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Publications, media, and current positions:

Current positions

1/2012: Fine Gardening Magazine, tool review columnist

12/2011: Proven Winners Plants, columnist and brand ambassador

10/2011: Landscaping Network, Pinterest curator

9/2011: Landscaping Network, columnist

6/2011: National Wildlife Federation recommended landscaper: The NWF lists me on their website as one of only twelve approved landscapers across the nation.

4/2011: Christian Science Monitor garden blog Diggin’ It, contributor

4/2011: Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens blog, founding member

12/2010: Commissioner, HDRC: Appointed by the city council to the Arcata Design Review Commission, a five-member body with judicial authority in charge of approving architectural and landscaping plans for commercial and historic projects.

12/2009: Garden Designers Roundtable, member

4/2003: Top Amazon.com Reviewer, reviewer for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2008, member of the Amazon Vine program for top reviewers

6/1997: Genevieve Schmidt Landscape Design and Fine Garden Maintenance, owner

Published work

3/2012: The American Gardener Magazine, “Book review: Free-Range Chicken Gardens, Timber Press”

1/2012: Fine Gardening Magazine, “Tool review: Fiskars Pruning Stik”

11/2011: Fine Gardening Magazine, “Four simple fixes that make a big difference: Take your beds from ‘blah’ to beautiful with one of these effective measures” (featuring my designed gardens!)

10/2011: Kellogg Garden, video for Eden Valley Blend garden soil (link coming spring 2012)

10/2011: Pacific Horticulture Magazine, “Book review: The New American Landscape, Timber Press”

1/2011: Fine Gardening Magazine, “Garden tip: Using weed spray without hurting good plants”

12/2010: Horticulture Magazine, “Garden MVPs: Landscape designers share their top plant picks”

11/2010: Garden Rant, “Garden Rant Cocktail Hour: British invasion”

8/2010: Fine Gardening Magazine, “Plant profile: Alstroemeria ‘The Third Harmonic’”

Media mentions

1/2012: Washington Post (Associated Press), “Big pond, big workload? Smaller water features can be easier on the backyard gardener”

11/2011: Garden Center Magazine, “Anthony Tesselaar Plants releases its 2012 garden trends report”

5/2011: Kirkus Reviews, “A Conversation About ‘Understanding Garden Design’”

12/2009: Lowes for Pros, “Innovative green landscaping solutions for 2010”

4/2009: Turf Magazine, “Edible landscapes: Today’s victory gardens”

4/2008: The North Coast Journal, “Meet the pro: Can you get by with a little help from a gardening coach?”

4/2008: The North Coast Journal, “Yes, coach!: You need to get your act in shape; here’s how your coach can help“

2/2008: The Christian Science Monitor, “Stymied? Huddle with a garden ‘coach’”

Selected blog mentions

1/2012: Ecosystem Gardening, “Reader appreciation: Genevieve Schmidt”

1/2012: The Impatient Gardener, “Expert bloggers’ favorite perennial picks”

10/ 2011: Garden of Possibilities, “Plants with black foliage”

5/2011: Garden Rant, “A raised bed in twenty seconds or less”

4/2011: The Impatient Gardener, “Rain delay: A few of my favorite gardening blogs”

2/2011: Garden Rant, “Fiskars madness“, “Fiskars madness continues“, “Yet another Fiskars adventure, plus Buddleia abuse“, “Our final Fiskars frenzy”

1/2011: Baltimore Sun’s Garden Variety, “Gardening from the couch: Five for the beginner”

12/2010: Garden Rant: “English Garden Tools. We love them, yeah, yeah, yeah…”

9/2010: Sunset’s Fresh Dirt, “Five favorite Pacific Northwest blogs”

7/2010: Studio G, “Favorite things: North Coast Gardening”

5/2010: Life on the Balcony, “How to befriend the birds, bees and butterflies on your balcony”

4/2010: Garden of Possibilities, “Pruning Mophead Hydrangeas”

2/2010: Garden Rant, “Do landscapers take their own advice?”

4/2009: Digging Dow’s Prairie, “Productive day”

4/2009: Garden Rant, “A tale of two rakes”

4/2008: Garden Rant, “Speaking of garden coaches“