About Us
A Note from Lisa, February 2018.
When I began dabbling in gardening 25 years ago, I never imagined what the future held for me. I was a beginner with a couple of years of gardening experience under my belt when I went on a date with a guy that just so happen to have a big vegetable garden. The rest they say around here is history, but I do want to set the record straight: I did not marry him for his gardening dowry—it was just the bonus!
After marrying Steve in 1996 it didn’t take me long to get knee deep into gardening. I share in my book Cool Flowers how the whole gardening love story unfolded and in Vegetables Love Flowers how I stepped up to take over the extended family vegetable gardens after moving on the Ziegler family homestead in 1997.
It was such a struggle for me those first years because the little experience I had was in shade gardening only—not full sun vegetable and flower gardening. I thought seed-starting struggles would be the end of me and the weeds, I had nightmares about weeds for all of July and August! I had and still have, such a deep passion for growing that I dug my heels in and went on to learn how to garden and then moved on to farming.
This journey led me to becoming an all-natural urban cut-flower farmer in southeastern Virginia. Today I realize that those struggles made me into what I have become today- a teacher that is passionate about helping others to fast forward through the tough parts of gardening to get to the good stuff—growing a garden with as little labor and the most abundance possible and doing it all pesticide free.
Grow a garden, it is good for your soul,
Lisa
About Lisa
What began as a small cut-flower farm producing for local markets has grown into so much more. Lisa has become a leader in the cut-flower growing industry, author, accomplished speaker and the owner of The Gardener’s Workshop.
It all began in 1998 because Lisa wanted to work in her garden as her career. At first, she sold her cut flowers to local florists and Colonial Williamsburg. The business soon grew to include florist throughout the Hampton Roads region, supermarkets, farmers markets, a members-only on-farm market, and a bouquet drop-off subscription service.
During this time Lisa began giving programs to garden clubs, master gardeners, commercial growers, and other groups. What became apparent is that people were eager for her simplified organic gardening methods and her greatest gift is sharing them.
The next natural step came when Lisa self-published The Easy Cut-Flower Garden in 2011. a 100-page guide on how-to grow and harvest a small home cutting garden. Her program travels began to spread from Texas to Oregon to New York City and she went on to become published with Cool Flowers in 2014 (St. Lynn’s Press) and Vegetables Love Flowers (Cool Springs Press 2018.)
Lisa’s farm, known as The Gardener’s Workshop is still a small market flower farm, and an online garden shop. The online store sells the same seeds, tools, supplies, and seed starting equipment that Lisa uses as well as signed copies of her books. Lisa’s simple, instructive, and delightful gardening messages are reaching far beyond any expectation she ever had.
