About the Author

My name is Steve Snedeker. I am American by birth and citizenship, although I have spent 17 years of my life living elsewhere. For purposes of Landscaping and Gardening-related topics, I have been plying at this trade for over nearly 35 years, pretty much enjoying it all the way through. I have moved often enough to have experienced a good number of Gardening Zones, having lived in the high desert in Reno, Nevada, as well as the Rain Forest environments of Vancouver, British Columbia and my nearly as wet current residence in Portland, Oregon.

It is a trade that keeps one fit and keeps one outdoors. It can – and often does – put a smile on a face. The robust openness of outdoor work had always had enormous appeal to me. Obviously, working with my hands is somewhat second nature, at least by this time anyway. I do, however, have decided academic interests and I read a lot. The computer should be against the law for people with my propensity to follow my curiosity and I am ever more curious the more I learn. The world of recreational gardening just received a huge shot in the arm with the advent of this marvelous machine – the computer. I cannot even begin to say how it has helped me and I sincerely hope discovering this site will serve a similar purpose for anyone reading beyond this page.

I have a gorgeous daughter who is currently in college and working in Vancouver, B.C., an irony I adore. In fact, she is going to the school I went to, a fact which neither of us realized until she was very near signed up. She has opted for a regime based upon Interior Design, the inverse of my particular brand of "Cosmetics" and I have to believe, after all the traipsing around she did at my projects, she will do well indeed.

My history in the field is pretty wide. I began in the trade by mowing lawns and maintaining very high-end residential properties in Vancouver in the early 1970's. I was most fortunate to have a mentor, of sorts, an Englishman, who really knew his stuff when it came to plant care, identification, grass and turf care and the like. I worked alongside him for nearly 6 years, absorbing wondrous and nearly daily amounts of information. In what would have been my 8th year, I ventured out of the nest on my own.

I mention this in such detail because it was a fundamental basis of what I took from there into the wider world of garden and landscape design and installations. Form that point on, I worked daily, for a variety of eventual firms and for myself. I ran business of my own for a total of about 15 years and have worked for huge landscape firms for another 9 years whose clients included Microsoft, Intel and Nike. I have done golf courses and 6,000 gallon per minute waterfalls. I have built compost bins for myself and clients and I grow some pretty killer Yellow Grape Tomatoes. In short, I have not only been around, but I actually enjoyed it all.