I started my garden business in Austin, Texas in 1997 and founded The Garden Works. My family and I relocated to Boulder, Colorado in 2008 and I re-named the business Emmons Gardens.

I have been involved in the landscape and garden industry for 35 years. Before starting my business, I managed my own farm in Pennsylvania, worked in and managed retail garden nurseries, studied horticulture at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania, and was a gardener at Crathes Castle National Trust for Scotland. These experiences solidified my passion for gardens and led me to pursue landscape architecture as a postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh Scotland, and garden design at London’s Chelsea Physic Gardens, English Gardening School.

My interest in troughs started forty-five years ago when I saw the collection of ancient stone troughs planted with alpine plants at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Most of these plants would have been lost and unnoticed if planted in the Garden’s extensive rock gardens. The stone troughs aesthetically and horticulturally provide the ideal environment to see and enjoy these diminutive gems. Interest grew into a passion, and I now make and sell hypertufa troughs that mimic the old European stone troughs in appearance and function, but at about half the weight and a fraction of the cost.