Interview with Green Chamber Member: Vee Horticulture

Founder of Vee Horticulture, Vanessa Kuemmerle, gives us the breakdown on urban gardening, swearing off gas-powered machines, and why it’s important as a sustainable business to stick to your guns…

LL:  How did the idea for Vee Horticulture first come about?

VK: I had been apprenticing to a designer and contractor for five years and decided it was time to strike out on my own.  A friend was helping me make business cards and I realized I didn’t know what to call it so he came up with Vee Horticulture. Vee is my nickname and horticulture is my focus so that is where the name came from. I gardened my whole life growing up in New Hampshire.  I came out here to go to California College of the Arts-CCA to study metalsmithing. One summer during school I needed a job and wanted to find something where I could be outside of the studio.  That’s when I started doing landscaping and just completely fell in love with it. I realized I really enjoyed being in the outdoors, working in all the elements with the added bonus of working with living things.

LL:  Why did you decide it was important to incorporate sustainability into your business practices?

VK:As a general rule, folks in the landscaping business are a pretty sustainable bunch. We have to be stewards of the land and take care of it.  At one point I was working with another designer who loved to use pesticides.  I decided I didn’t want that in my business.  My own life practice of taking care of my surroundings naturally extended into my business practice of caring for others’ surroundings as well.  Vee Horticulture has been sustainable since the very beginning in 1997.  As the years have gone on sustainability has become a buzzword, but at the same time it’s become a practice, which is a good thing.  We all need to move in that direction.

LL:  Did you face any obstacles along the path to becoming a sustainable business and what challenges do you still face?

VK: I imagine I could say yes, I have faced challenges, but in reality it was more a matter of sticking to my principles.  It was about saying to clients, “I can’t do that for you.  Here is how we can make this work in a more sustainable, practical way.”  One example, coming back to pesticides, was someone who wanted a huge lawn they would never use.  That just wouldn’t be a part of my design.  So even though folks think they should spray their roses with pesticides and have huge swaths of lawn, I have to stick to my guns.  I have to explain to them that it will not only be more beautiful, but it will cost less in all kinds of ways to you and the environment if we make this a sustainable landscape.

People either come on board or they don’t.  That’s my biggest challenge, to have to edit some of my clients out because they want me to do something that wouldn’t work in a sustainable way.  Being a sustainable business means you don’t cave in to folks just because they think they want a certain thing.  You have to consider that maybe the person isn’t educated about the dry climate of California and why a large lawn doesn’t make sense.

I’ve been working a lot with folks who want to grow their own food. I love cooking and find it extremely satisfying to make a meal out of your own backyard.  I love to help folks put edible landscapes in.  It involves clients in their own garden and gets them excited to see what’s coming up next if they are out there working in it.  Also, an edible garden doesn’t have to be a big hippy mess.  Aesthetics are important to most of my clients.  It can be a simultaneously useful and beautiful space.

LL:  Can you tell us more about specific sustainable business methods that Vee Horticulture practices?

VK: Some of my clients live at the edges of parks and wild lands.  The best practice would be to integrate the native landscape with plants that need less maintenance and water.  I try to choose plants that are also beneficial to local insects and wildlife populations such as bees, birds and all those wonderful things.  We try to plant things that will attract pollinators.

I do a lot of small gardens in urban environments and people often ask for native plants.  Things need to look good all the time in a small urban garden and native plants have rest cycles that sometimes look kind of scruffy.  If folks are up for that, I support them.  But if they want it to look good all the time, I’ll use adaptive plants from other Mediterranean climates like South Africa or Australia to bloom at different times and fill out the look.

One of the main things I do in terms of sustainability is to not use pesticides.  I focus on feeding the soil with compost and mulch to create a healthy garden.  If you feed the soil, you feed the plant and that makes for healthy gardens that do not need pesticides.  If you see a plant is not doing well, then it’s not the right plant for that space.  It doesn’t make sense to poison the whole system by pointing to one thing that’s not doing well in a garden and dumping chemicals on it.

We conserve water by using drought tolerant plants, adding lots of compost and mulch and installing smart water meters.  These meters monitor temperature, humidity and soil moisture to determine proportional watering.  If it’s a cloudy day in spring, the water doesn’t go on.  This can increase the effectiveness of your watering system and reduces the clients need to call you because this technology works automatically from the client’s computer and weather stations to program the system.

We also don’t put in giant hedges that need pruning all the time or huge swaths of lawn. I don’t own a blower or lawnmower.  I design gardens that don’t need constant maintenance so we won’t have to constantly come and haul yard waste away, which saves fuel as well as human labor energy.

I use recycled materials from onsite whenever possible. I’m not a fan of scraping everything away, massively re-grading and basically starting all over.  You have to ask yourself, “What is the land saying?  What is the architecture saying?  How can we come in and integrate the landscape in the least invasive way possible?”  Some of these things are second nature.  It is not as though I think, “Oh, I’ve checked that sustainable practice off the list.”  One thing always leads to another.  One practice naturally seems to make other aspects work.  For example, if I’m feeding the soil properly, I know I can create an edible space without toxic chemicals, without bringing in new materials, and without gas-powered mowers.

Composting on site is also a no brainer. However, people in the city generally don’t have a lot of room for a compost bin so worm bins can be a great alternative.

LL:  What advice do you have for other businesses who are trying to adopt green business models?

VK: Keep it simple.  As I mature in my business and my own life, my aesthetics are moving more toward simplicity.  Of course, simple is never as easy as it looks. In business, you have to have the willingness to try and sometimes fail.  I also recommend just getting out there and getting experience.  Really observe, be empirical and adapt to whatever observations you make.  Move forward in a scientific manner.  Be consistent and persistent.  Don’t be afraid to try and keep on trying and be creative!

LL:  Do you see any trends in your industry emerging around conservation and sustainability?

VK: Growing food is a trend which is wonderful and important and radical considering the level that big business, corporations and even our government is trying to control the source of our food.  For example, people are rejecting the major meat finishing and packing industry’s inhumane way animals are raised, fed and slaughtered.  Folks aren’t wanting any of that and are fighting back with buying locally raised, grass fed animals not pumped full of hormones.  It was exciting to watch Jamie Oliver’s TED Talk where he was discussing food as being this revolutionary idea.  They showed him going to inner city schools and holding up mushrooms and other veggies.   The kids had no idea what it was he was holding in his hands.  So I see gardening as an important way to contribute to this movement.

LL:  How did you find out about the Green Chamber and what made you decide to join?

VK: I heard about the Green Chamber through Pam Evans, Coordinator of Alameda County’s Green Business Program (a part of the Bay Area Green Business Program whose sustainability standards we meet).  She also connected me with another great resource, Bay Friendly Landscaping, which provides tools and resources to grow healthy, sustainable gardens that protect the San Francisco Bay and its watersheds. I like the fact that if I want to install solar panels, dry cleaning, house painting, etc. I can go check out other members of the Green Chamber or the Green Business Program and use them as a resource for green services.

I had always been offered to join other Chambers of Commerce.  The first time I felt really good about it was when the Green Chamber approached me.  I had gone to mixers and events of other Chambers of Commerce and sometimes felt like these aren’t my people. They were all business, and I am not willing to compromise my aesthetics and principles.  And the thing is, with the Green Chamber you don’t have to. It’s kind of nice!  I hope that GCC grows to the point where we can advocate for public policy.