about us

"Garden is not only a noun; it is also a verb. It is an activity, craft, discipline, way of life, or leisure time pursuit. It is the husbandman’s art, the act of environmental stewardship. If it is “our” garden, we have conceived it and acted as steward. For other places we may understand the work, the processes, effort, and affection that created and sustained the place. We respond to both garden forms and processes – the noun and the verb. We have an affinity for places and processes."   - Kenneth Helphand

I like gardening. I still like to call what I do gardening. In the early twentieth century Jens Jensen, one of America’s greatest landscape designers, noted the “strong tendency by the American Landscaper to get away from gardening, as if that word smelled of cabbage. He has a fear of being classed with the craftsman instead of the professional, and today the art is practically killed because of his efforts to make a profession of it”.

My gardening career has been almost exclusively spent in the South of France. In 1991 I moved from Paris to La Gaude, a small village in the hills above Nice. There I had the incredible fortune to discover and, over the years, absorb the Mediterranean climate. The incredible diversity of the region’s microclimates gave me an invaluable education and helped to shape my creative vision. After seventeen years immersing myself in one terrestrial Eden, it was time to find another. Northern California Wine Country and the greater Bay Area seemed an obvious choice. Not only does the area enjoy a similar and dazzling variety of microclimates like those I came to know and love in the South of France, it has the diversity in thought and passion I have come to appreciate in its inhabitants. People I hope to work and grow with for years to come.

In horto aspires to be your long-term partner in the evolution of your garden chef-d’oeuvre through the exchange of creative ideas, excellence in plant / hardscape materials selection and installation, and yearly maintenance.

Services offered, though not limited to: design & installation of perennial beds, vegetable gardens, herb gardens, rock gardens, bulbs, containers / specimen gardens, plant propagation, cold frames, composters, ponds, water features, trellises, arbors, hardscaping, pathways, irrigation design, installation & repair, lawns, exterior lighting.

What's in horto?

I was born and raised in Chicago. When the city was founded in 1837, the city fathers adopted the motto Urbs in Horto, which is Latin for City in a Garden. Conservationists would later claim that Chicago’s original gardens were the native prairies that abounded on its perimeter, but it is likely that the city fathers were here referring to horticultural gardens and organized parks. I champion the conservationists.