A worker-owned design, build, and maintenance cooperative

We Are The Peoples Gardening Collective

Our team of landscape specialists have diverse educational backgrounds including horticulture, environmental sciences, and arboriculture. Crew members have specialized certifications for building retaining walls, and installing pavers and permeable surfaces. Our skilled construction team builds a wide range of hardscaping designs.

This range of talent enables us to unlock the full potential of your exterior environment through careful management, planning, and design. Whether you already love your garden and wish to simply maintain it, or want to make improvements such as adding plants, irrigation, or hardscaping, we are excited to help!

We only use organic products, discourage pesticides and herbicides, and encourage proper cultural care of your garden through regular maintenance. In addition, we have taken a leap forward in Earth-friendly business practices to reduce waste by implementing a paperless system.

We hope you’ll join us in a holistic approach to beautifying your outdoor living space as well as preserving the integrity of our environment, communities, and humanity.

Get in Touch

      CO-OP PRINCIPLES

  1. Voluntary and open membership: Cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership, without gender, social, racial, political or religious discrimination.
  2. Democratic member control: Cooperatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting policies and decision making.
  3. Member economic participation: Members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their cooperative.
  4. Autonomy and independence: Cooperatives are autonomous organizations controlled by their members.
  5. Education, training and information: Cooperatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperative.
  6. Cooperation among cooperatives: Cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the cooperative movement by cooperating with one another.
  7. Concern for community: While focusing on members’ needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies accepted by their members.

1988
Started the Company
28 years ago City People’s Garden Store began as a workers cooperative with a landscaping division.

2015
5-Star Rating
We were one of only a handful of landscaping companies awarded a 5-Star Envirostars rating.
2016
(R)Evolution
We went back to our roots, making the landscaping division a stand-alone workers collective as PGC Seattle.

The Collective

Bret Kenney

Worker-Owner Bret has been out in the elements with shovel and level since 2005, seeking mathematical solutions to structural and horticultural objectives.  He lives to plant, design, build, and make things grow. Being party to others' ideas and fostering their growth gives him even more life. He values achieving these life affirmations within a community of other skilled professionals who share the same passions.

Dan Weber

Worker-Owner Dan Weber has found himself routinely engaged in horticulture since childhood. From the classroom to the nursery to the field, the soil-plant-human continuum has been the common thread through his work and education. He is excited that PGC’s commitment to its workers and Seattle’s exuberant environment will allow him to develop his skills at a high level.

Jonathan Henderson

Worker-Owner Jonathan has a passion for all things green and growing, as well as being skilled in building beautiful things in the garden. He is an experienced and creative carpenter.  From the science of soil structure to the relationships of plants and beneficial fungi, Jonathan's boundless curiosity keeps him learning and expanding his skills daily.

CJ Johnson

Worker-Owner CJ's first professional gardening experience came at the age of four when each bucket of rocks pulled out of the New England soil earned 50 centers from their parents. At age 12 they had to admit to themselves that the riding mower was their happy place (ten dollars per mow)-- although now their passion lies more in replacing lawns than maintaining them.

Today they greatly enjoy carrying on that professional experience as a co-owner of PGC, with whom they have been gardening their heart out since 2017. You will find them in your garden with the maintenance crew, or meeting with you at your home to see how we can help you and what we think it will take. They will probably encourage you to plant a Manzanita or an Evergreen Huckleberry, and you should probably listen to them.

Able Whitmore

Worker-Owner Able's life goals include being outside as much as possible, and continuing to learn on a daily basis. An amateur mycologist with a history in restoration work, their outdoor passions include edible landscapes, native plants, and permaculture. They enjoy studying the interconnectedness and interdependence of different life forms, which brings a deep love to gardening, as people are part of nature, not apart from it. Spending time creating and maintaining the gardens that bring joy and peace to others' lives helps realize Able's dream of having their work be "love made visible".

Tamar Lively

Worker-Owner Tamar is our tech-nerd-in-residence.  She has been integral in developing the processes to take us mobile and paperless, as well as building our server and network infrastructure, website, and branding.  She has spent over a decade managing landscaping companies, working to develop business strategies that incorporate environmental and humanitarian best practices.  Her love of plants and technology, cats and people, business and service, make her excited to call PGC home.

Melissa P.

Worker-Owner Melissa is a passionate arborist and plant nerd.  When she's not busy working hard in gardens, she spends her time with the worlds most interesting cat, Princess Pretty Paws.  Melissa brings a vast amount of knowledge to PGC with her many years in landscaping as well as her education as an arborist.

Reece Bredl 

Worker-Owner Reece has been working in landscaping for 7 years. He spent most of that time self-contracting in the Oregon Rogue Valley after graduating from Southern Oregon University. He got homesick, came back to his hometown of Seattle in 2020, and was glad to find work with PGC. Reece is a nature enthusiast and art lover and loves combining the two in his work.

Miranda Holtgrefe

Worker-Owner Miranda has a background in Sustainability and brings with her experience in estate and mature gardening, plant identification, and Plant Amnesty’s Master Pruners. She is excited to be part of the PGC family and is looking forward to planting her roots here. When she’s not working, she enjoys spending time reading, writing, hiking, photography, foraging, kayaking, backpacking, attending concerts, practicing yoga, and hanging out with her dog Lily.  

Robert Engel

Worker-Owner Robert is a member of the Garden maintenance crew at PGC. He has been gardening for four years with an emphasis on pruning in the natural style, minimizing recurring maintenance requirements and allowing the garden to flourish in the least invasive way possible. He is an active student at Edmonds Community College, focusing on a Certified Professional Horticulturalist qualification with plant identification and Arboriculture classes. He has a direct, proactive style, seeking to find the most practical and horticulturally accurate solution to everyday garden problems, making the long-term future of the gardens his top priority. In his free time, Robert is a community organizer in the Seattle Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, fighting institutional racism at its roots with direct action and grassroots organization in local communities. His other interests include chess, fighting games, and music.

Marco Downs

Worker-Owner Marco has worked in landscaping since he transplanted himself from Florida to Seattle in 2014. He has done garden maintenance, construction, nursery work, design, green stormwater infrastructure, and project management. At PGC, he focuses on design and construction. In Seattle, Marco has made an effort to maintain a connection to the land and community through participation in the P-Patch program, the Beacon Food Forest, the Cass Turnbull garden, and other local gardening projects. Marco constantly seeks to expand his horizons through art making and continuing education. His interests include acrylic painting, artificial intelligence, mycorrhizal communication, West African decorative motifs, cymatics, microscopy, and the Sun.

Bonnie Henwood

Worker-Owner Bonnie has worked in landscaping since 2017. She currently works on the landscape construction crew at PGC. After graduating from UW with a bachelor's degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, she discovered that landscape construction combined her love of plants and nature with her passion for building things with her own hands. She has since taken carpentry courses at the Seattle Wood Technology Center and has become a Certified Professional Horticulturalist. Building beautiful gardens and spaces for people to enjoy being outside and connect with nature is an important part of her work. In her free time, she has many hobbies including gardening, bookbinding, painting, and leatherwork.