Meet Our Team

Kara started her life as a lover of the outdoors and wild spaces. All through her childhood she felt a responsibility to be a good steward to the earth. This generally meant picking up trash and encouraging her family to recycle. During her time in the US Navy, Kara’s shipmates would tease her about the amount of recycling she would constantly be shuttling from the ship to the local recycling facility in her great-grandparents old station wagon! After college she found a love of gardening. It was around this time when Kara started thinking about sustainable gardening practices and found the book The Landscaping Revolution: Garden With Mother Nature, Not Against Her by Andy and Sally Wasowski at the local library. This set her on the course to start gardening with native plants and creating habitat in her own backyard. For over 12 years she has been utilizing native plants in her gardenscapes, bringing nature home, and sharing her passion for native plants with everyone she meets.

Tim is Kara’s husband and the resident IT guy, both in his day job and with DRL. He can be found eradicating honeysuckle during his lunch breaks.

DRL is family owned and we all work together to be great small business owners and good land stewards. (Team Remove-All-The-Honeysuckle)

Cameron, aka Ron, is one of our Garden Technicians. He started working with at DRL in the spring of 2022.

When not at work, he spends his time baking, reading, and, of course, gardening! He also enjoys puns and is not afraid to tell us when we bomb, so he has helped us elevate our punny-sense of humor here at DRL.

One of his favorite native plants is Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca). Cameron says, "It's got a cool form, beautiful big pink flowers, great wildlife magnet, and just a quintessential part of the summer landscape."

Courtney is one of our Garden Designers and Consultants, as well as our Webmaster, IT Administrator, and Social Media Coordinator. She started working at DRL in June 2022 and has been busy getting our online store up and running and creating content for our social media accounts. In 2023, she started taking on consultation and design clients after doing native garden design for several years before her work with DRL.

In her free time, she works on her native landscaping at home or spends time with her cats while making designing new garden beds. She and her husband enjoy hiking and traveling.

One of her favorite native plants is Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata). It's an annual prairie plant beloved by bumblebees and other insects. She uses Partridge Pea as a green mulch to keep weeds down while allowing slower-growing trees and shrubs to mature.

Ann is a Nursery Technician at DRL. She started working with us in 2023. When not at work, Ann enjoys working in her garden at home, cooking and baking, and spending time at the beach.

Ann has a ton of native plants in her home garden, but one of her favorites is Blue False Indigo, "I really like my Baptisia australis. I love the color and shape of the flowers, the foliage is different, and the seed pods are fun to rattle."

Bronwynn is our Field Site Coordinator and started working at DRL in March 2024.

She will be in the field with our field techs, ensuring invasive removal, bed prep, installs, and other aspects of our native landscaping projects run smoothly. Having Bronwynn coordinate these moving parts as DRL grows will be especially important.

Bronwynn is inspired by and loves spending time in the natural world outside of work. She enjoys hiking and exploring our local Metroparks with her husband and four-year-old son. She also enjoys “gardening, farming, cooking and trying new cuisines, yoga, and just general fun outside!”

When asked about her favorite native plant, she admitted it was hard to choose just one favorite (a very common answer among DRL employees!). “There are so many native plants and so much to learn about them that it’s hard to choose just one favorite. I like how plant communities work together, and all of the niches and layers that can be discovered in just one small space.” She picked Joe Pye weed as a “versatile plant that can be adapted to different spaces in the garden, and is high on the pollinator-friendly list.”

Chris is one of our Garden Technicians at DRL. He started working with us in the spring of 2024 and is already a valuable team member! Working outdoors installing and maintaining our clients’ gardens is hard work, and the field techs are right at the center of it. We are lucky to have such a great group of techs here at DRL!

Outside of work, Chris enjoys playing soccer and reading and writing fiction. When asked about his favorite native plant, Chris says, “Pawpaws. I just really like the fruit.” 

Audrey is a Garden/Nursery Technician at DRL. She started working with us in May 2024 and is quickly becoming an invaluable team member! When not in the garden, you'll probably find her in the aerial studio or working on a home renovation project with her husband.

Audrey is new to native plants, so she's hesitant to choose a favorite just yet. But, one of the first native species she snagged for her own yard is Black Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis). "It seems like an incredible plant overall, offering stunning flowers (that can make a yummy cordial) in spring, offering privacy as it climbs tall, and offering food and medicine for humans and wildlife through the berries that arrive later in summer. I am so excited to work with it as it grows!"

Kevin is a Garden Technician at DRL. He joined our team in October 2024 and has already done a ton of hard work making winter wreaths and insulating the barn and workshop!

He enjoys spending time outdoors, reading, woodworking, and collecting and restoring antique hand tools when not at work.

One of Kevin’s favorite native plants is Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), “because of the vibrant color it turns during the autumn and holds onto throughout the winter.”