About the Firm

Beth Young Garden Design, LLC started in Corvallis, Oregon in April of 1998 with one residential project: an friend's backyard. Without any advertising budget, Beth grew the company by listening to clients, responding to their needs, changing and growing with the times, and excellent word-of-mouth recommendations.

So far, Beth has helped over 150 individuals and families to create the yards they have always wanted. She has dabbled in a few commercial projects, and designed a portion of the Oregon State University campus (The People's Park original design). The smallest project was a side of a driveway that measured about 4' by 12' and the largest was a 3-acre residence of oak-dotted foothills outside of Salem, Oregon.

At times Beth has employed a person to measure the sites and one to mind the shop, but these days she is more satisfied to run all aspects of her very small business. So, although she says things like "my firm" and "the firm" on this website she does try to keep away from the somewhat misleading "we." If there is a slipup on one of these webpages, rest assured that "we" is used in the royal sense.

In October, 2012, Beth Young Garden Design, LLC moved to Santa Cruz, California.

About Beth

Raised in Burlingame, California (on the San Francisco peninsula), Beth graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Architecture. After five years of working in Bay Area landscape architecture firms, she moved with her then-husband to Corvallis, Oregon, where they raised a family. Ten years later, in 1998, she started Beth Young Garden Design, LLC.

In 2005 Beth created a class she called "Naturescape Your Yard" which taught homeowners how to design their own yards in harmony with nature's processes. This class featured speakers from the horticultural and ecology communities and was widely popular; each time it was offered it filled quickly.

Feeling that she was on to something, she made a book proposal based on the class and, eventually, Timber Press offered her a book deal. This book became The Naturescaping Handbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Bringing Nature to Your Backyard which was released in November, 2011.

In 2010 Beth traveled to Italy for an extended trip. She worked on book rewrites, visited many historic gardens in Tuscany, wrote about life there (yet unpublished), and studied the language. For the next two years she lived in both Corvallis and Siena. She hopes to eventually go back to Italy and guide English-speakers on tours that highlight the beautiful gardens and the sustainable, ancient, farm-to-fork food systems in bella Toscana (which answers the question: why does food taste so much better in Italy?).

In September, 2012 she decided to move to Santa Cruz, California to be closer to family and live in a town she had always admired for its innovative and offbeat spirit. She is now busy meeting people and establishing her company as a great addition to the Central Coast community.

Beth Young Garden Design, LLC

Sustainable landscape design since 1998

101 Cooper Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060

831-419-9853

info "at" bygardendesign.com