Owner - Jesse Hersh

Hi there and welcome to Songbird. Here is my attempt at shameless self promotion.

I bring 20+ years of devoted nature observation, horticultural training, design/build experience, and an environmental science and education background to every landscape decision.

Over the years I have helped clients optimize their backyard vegetable gardens, residential landsapes, multi-acre home orchards, commercial organic farms/ranches, and have guided forest management on 100+ acre estates.

No matter the size of the project, I embrace a conservation mentality and approach every project with the famous Aldo Leopold quote in mind:

“A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

I like to think of a garden designer or a farmer or a home gardener as sort of a diplomat or translator or bridge between the world of plants and the human world. The choices we make here have effects that, be they wise or not so wise, echo and spill into the surrounding landscape. They alter how we perceive and how we are perceived by our neighbors big and small.

On the ground this looks like using locally sourced materials, regionally appropriate plants, and optimizing every design for a healthful life. For me this includes:

• organically grown food footsteps from the kitchen,

• inviting spaces to create fond memories with loved ones,

• an endless backdrop of birdsong,

• flowers that seem like they belong in the place,

• unplanned encounters with butterflies, hummingbirds, bees, and yes, even the less charismatic species.

And of course remembering to zoom out to examine the impact of the project at the larger ecosystem level.

Each garden I create intends to invite nature back in. The modern human landscape is generally a patchwork of unrelated gardens that lack the continuity required to support the levels of biodiversity that have been casually evicted by our collective landscape choices.\

In my work I am pushing for a less fragmented landscape where neighbors’ yards and farmers’ farms come into conversation with one another, where local birds and pollinators can fly from one to the next and find the sustenance they need to keep singing and buzzing along.

My goal on every project is to artfully arrange the right set of plants for the client and the environment itself. No two gardens (or clients) are alike, and if I’ve done my job we land at a sweet spot where we’ve done right by the client, the ecosystem, and its many inhabitants.