I'm the person
who brought a
Monstera to the meeting.

The roots

How I got here (hint: there were plants involved)

I grew up in Salt Lake City, and in our house growing food was just what everybody did. Mom had crops in the yard, fruit trees, and a pantry full of mason jars she'd fill every fall so we'd have pears and peaches and whatever else all winter. Snow would cover the garden for months and the kitchen would smell like whatever she was canning that week. I didn't think of it as "gardening." It was just the background of life.

We moved to San Jose when I was 13, and I realized nobody around me did any of that. Not the neighbors, not my friends' parents. Gardens went from "what everyone does" to "a thing only weird Christopher does." I didn't plant anything for years.

It took a while to come back around. Eventually I got a community garden plot — still have it — and immediately started getting everything wrong. Wrong season for the wrong crop. Pest pressure I had no plan for. Whole beds I quietly gave up on by July. What I learned from that plot wasn't how to grow. It was how not to grow. That mistake-first education is still how I teach now — I'd rather tell you what blew up in my face than hand you a tidy list of best practices.

Somewhere between the community garden failures and now, I went deep on botany and horticulture — especially the aroids (the impossibly beautiful, perpetually misunderstood family that includes Monsteras, Philodendrons, and at least three plants in your bathroom you've accidentally overwatered).

The result: workshops and talks that leave people surprised by how much they care about soil structure. I consider this my greatest professional achievement.

My husband and I have been together 21 years, married 11 — the gap had less to do with indecision and more to do with waiting for California's Prop 8 to get overturned. He tolerates the 200+ plants indoors and the seasonal balcony overflow with a patience I haven't earned.

The sanctuary

My high-rise jungle (yes, it's a lot)

Home is a high-rise condo that could generously be described as "verdant" and less generously described as "a situation." I share it with 200+ plants indoors, plus another 30 to 70 on the balcony depending on the season — and a level of plant-care follow-through I'm still working on extending equally to my inbox.

The Sanctuary, as it's lovingly known, is also a living experiment. It's where I test theories about light, humidity, root health, and the surprisingly complex social dynamics of plants in close proximity. It's weird. It's green. I love it more than most things.

My approach

Humor, rigor, and radical human-centeredness

Everything I do — botanical education, consulting, advisory work, creative projects — comes from the same place: a deep belief that the most effective way to help someone learn or change is to make them feel seen, curious, and occasionally delighted.

I don't separate "funny" from "rigorous." I think they're the same thing done well. A room that's laughing is a room that's listening. And a team that's listening is a team that might actually implement something.