Our Story & Ecological Design Roots | Blossom Landscape
Gardens with Blossom business card from 1999. The original “Fernbine” logo spawned from a combination of the Oregon natives, the Sword Fern and the Western Columbine.
Born a ‘Blossom’ you might think it was clear all along Todd Blossom would end up in the landscape world. Especially if you knew, at 13 years old I was already riding and pushing lawnmowers around my neighborhood in Fairfield, OH selling my lawnmowing services.
Finding Inspiration in the Pacific Northwest
Fast forward to 1994 and a small town Ohio boy making his first visit to Portland, OR it became clear the grass was definitely greener on the other side. Something about Portland had me from the beginning and I am convinced the amount of urban green space combined with the access to amazing nature in every direction were a big part of it. Exploring the nature of the Pacific Northwest was a passion. Humbled by the size and age of trees, the pureness of the waters and the overall lushness of the forest floor I became fixated on understanding how the systems of nature worked.
I decided to fall back on my roots of landscaping and joined a local landscape company as a crew leader. Even though the work was the same; mowing, blowing, spraying, pruning, etc. I began to feel I was actually doing a disservice to the natural beauty and nature I was learning to love at a much deeper level.
It was when I had the good fortune to move into a house in SE Portland that my eyes were opened to an alternative approach. It was a simple single story home with a solarium on the south side, solar hot water and a landscape packed with edibles - apples, pears, plums, grapes, blueberries, cherries, a substantial vegetable garden and flowers, so many flowers. We called it, Urban Eden, and having been quite neglected for a few years it was ready for the Blossom touch with a new outlook.
Discovering Permaculture and Ecological Design
This opened the door to the idea of urban permaculture for me. Permaculture is “a design system for creating sustainable human habitats and agricultural systems by mimicking patterns and relationships found in nature, aiming to integrate land, resources, and people to meet needs with minimal waste and energy.” The question was, could one build a landscape business ‘specializing in the cultivation of ecological design and urban permaculture’? Time would tell, but it was clear at the time, this was my new direction and Gardens with Blossom came to be.
Portland was the perfect landing for this new approach, and people were ready and happy to support new healthier landscapes at their homes. Some homeowners were already well ahead of me in setting up a landscape where green grass was not the primary objective. In fact some were already lawn free, chemical free, catching rain water, growing food, and planting native plants - this was 1999!
Our Philosophy Today
In alignment with permaculture principles we began to envision the urban landscape with a more systemic approach, designing spaces to support themselves and give back to the residents. “The harmony of beauty, art and function through sustainable means” became the service offered. This service has remained at the foundation of Blossom Landscape throughout the course of its life. We continue to build relationships with people and places as our knowledge, experience and service are ever evolving. Today our chemical-free gardens move, percolate and infiltrate water into the landscape, build healthy soil, provide food and habitat for insects and wildlife, reduce our carbon footprint and provide a place for people to live and learn from nature.
In a world where our relationship to nature can be all but forgotten it is important to remember what nature gives us - life.
At Blossom Landscape, we are here to help to remind ourselves and each other: "The earth laughs in flowers." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
