| About me

     In 1996, I moved to Austin to study acting at UT. I worked at my first garden center in 1999--Howard Nursery at Koenig Ln and Ave F. In 2001, I joined my first band, a rocking blues band called The Alternators, and we played our first gig (my first ever) at Texas Chili Parlor on Lavaca St in 2002. 

     After Howard Nsy, I joined the team at Hill Country Landscape in NW Austin, and in a few years of slinging plants at the nursery there, I began providing home landscape consultations and designs to clients, with Tim Smith's Hill Country crews installing my plans. Also in this time, I sang in lots of other bands, including The Jazz Pharaohs, Flying Club, Dan Sir Dancer, Whack Sabbath, The Gold Connection--I formed my own band, The Violet Crown Revue, who do swing and bossa standards, amongst other things.

     In 2014, I started working at Barton Springs Nursery on Bee Cave Rd, and kept on designing home gardens and landscapes, utilizing dear colleagues from Hill Country to install the plans. Barton Springs Nursery owners Conrad and Bernardine Bering had me represent BSN twice on KLRU's television program Central Texas Gardener, and I purchased the terracotta lines for the store. In 2014, I also joined the awesome party band High Fidelity, the raucous, high energy Hot Texas Swing Band, and Alice Cooper tribute band Pretties for You. We are all still playing to this day...going strong, rocking all night long! Oh yeah--Violet Crown released a standards CD in 2019.

     In 2020, I left Barton Springs Nsy to do my own thing, plant-wise. Gus Sanchez, my old buddy from Hill Country Landscape, kept installing my landscape designs with me, and my regular clients and referrals kept me busy in the pandemic years. We all still performed musically, here and there, masked up and weird, but still doing it.     

     Here and now, I've been singing and digging in this town, all over the state, and beyond--for twenty years plus. I, and my many beloved players, are expert in many genres, many styles, many aesthetics--musically and botanically speaking. My work is expressive and inspired, inclusive and engaging. I am surrounded by the best musicians and contractors, who make our work anything but--we enjoy what we do, so you will, too.`