Wendi Martin, a holistic horticulturist and master naturalist, wife, and mother to two teen daughters. Wendi offers gardening expertise from her past decade of learning and working the many facets of her local green industry. Her services include resilient garden coaching, ecological landscape and land tract consultations, edible and native garden design, even garden sitting because we all need peace of mind when we are on vacation. Her clients are the radical DIYers and stewards of their landscapes. Her job is to be there to guide them, saving them time, money and most importantly energy. She believes gardening, time outdoors observing nature, hands on the Earth, and having access to fresh produce is essential to health & wellness and that health is ultimately wealth!
Wendi’s interest in growing began with a quest to learn to grow homegrown veggies for, like many millennials, a home veggie garden had skipped a generation in her family. Thus, her journey began with an inquiry to the horticulture department at St.Louis Community College. At that time,a decade ago, STLCC Meramec was not offering education on edibles but she was assured she’d learn to grow and understand plants, so she enrolled into the program that year and began her horticulture career. She soon later discovered and enrolled into an apprenticeship program at Earthdance Farms, in Ferguson, MO, where they would indeed teach and guide her hands on to grow organically produced vegetables from the field to then selling the beautiful and nutritious bounties at the community farmer’s market. During her time at the farm a radical moment happened for her! Earthdance held a hands-on educational workshop building a rain garden and planted it in with Missouri native plants, thus educating her on stormwater management and the essentials of pollinators for not only ecology in general but for the food crops we were growing on the farm. This set her intentions in stone! She would forever and always learn, grow, be a steward of her family’s health,a steward of land health and with this passion thus would work towards growing a business to guide others to be their best stewards too! Before finishing up the horticulture program at STLCC, she would complete the Master Naturalist program at the college and move into and complete an Internship with Litzsinger Road Ecology Center, managed by Missouri Botanical Garden, there she learned land tract stewardship and thus methods in monitoring, managing and restoring Missouri tallgrass prairie, woodlands, and streambanks.
Wendi’s journey has taken her through the work as a Horticulturist for municipal parks and recreation, for private estates, and through wholesale growing supplies and plant retail departments of our local green industry. Wendi believes we are forever learners, you may even run into her, as she continues to attend green industry conferences and seminars to stay enlightened! She is a professional member of Grow Native!, GPHA(Gateway Professional Horticulturist Association), and also serves as a board member for St. Charles Area Wild Ones and LNAGSL(Landscape and Nursery Association of Greater St. Louis).Wendi skills allow her to work with residential community members and land owners to foster resilient and functional landscapes and thus meet clients where they are in order to guide them to be their best stewards for the health and wellness of all!