Dan Fahndrich
I was born in Puerto Rico & lived with my family in Texas, California and six years in Tepic, Nayarit Mexico. During my childhood the family traveled so often that by the age of fourteen I had been in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, all over Mexico, 48 states in the USA & three provinces of Canada. These childhood adventures exposed me to a wide range of habitat from rain forests to extreme Death Valley Desert & everything in between.
Some of my favorite outings were collecting tropical plants in the jungle on the way back from the beach to our home in Mexico & the loads of rocks we hauled from opal mines to “wow” look what I found along the road. Of course these loads slowed the volkswagen down quite abit, and on backroads we would have to get out and help push up the hill.
We moved to Oregon so we could attend High school and I have lived here in the Salem area most of my life. I have of course taken advantage of the “on the road again” thinking and made many trips to expand my horizons.
This has influenced my love for gardening, playing in the dirt as an artist, and being a watershaper. Over the years I have been fortunate to share my fascination of styles from different lands that leads us to our unique blend of style in the Northwest. I have always respected the ones that have gone before us and have learned a great deal from many great gardner’s I ‘ve had the privilege to know.
I have been in the landscape profession in one arena or another since 1976. I have been a founding board member, committee chair and local chapter president of the Oregon landscape contractors association. I ‘ve also served 7 years with the Oregon landscape contractors board setting policy as a member and chairman.
My life has been one of privilege that has allowed me to enjoy the publicity and success of being in time magazine and many other medias as one of the founders of the second highest traffic gardening website, to the disappointment of business venture failures. Thankfully I have many clients that have allowed me to create wonderful gardens for them that have been on garden tours and published. The greatest reward is when I see families enjoy the concepts and use the lifestyle we have created for them.