It’s a beautiful summer day to Meet the Team! This month we are highlighting our General Manager – fearless leader and plant guru – Daniel. His passion for our work is deep-rooted and contagious: it is felt by everyone who has the pleasure of working with him. Our team wouldn’t be the same without our pun-loving, surf-styling manager! Read more below to get to know a bit about him!
- How long have you been working at Madrone?
I have been working at Madrone for 11 ½ years. I started in December 2007 right at the beginning of the Great Recession. With a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and a couple years of running and working in small design build landscape companies, it was a tough time to be starting out on your own. Before Madrone, work simply ran out. I reached out to a former Landscape Architect professor, Stratton Semmes, and she told me to come and talk to Rick Mathews at Madrone Landscape. I interviewed with Rick in my nicest button up shirt, slacks, and shoes, willing to help out however I could as a 25-year old young adult. The next day, I came in with work boots and jeans and started running landscape construction jobs. As time went on, I took on design, estimating, and sales while managing construction projects. Madrone was about 10 people and we all did what we could to survive in the dismal economy of 2007-2010. Sure enough, things turned around and the phone started ringing. We started working with business consultants to organize our roles and the company makeup to handle more work. We started building the team of key people we still have today and it helped us get past the hurdle of being an awkwardly small company where everyone wears a lot of hats.
Today we have about 25 people and 4 distinct departments: Design, Construction, Maintenance, and Service. Our capability, organization, and talent has grown. I have been the General Manager for the last 4 years and it has been an honor to work with such great people and see how much we can accomplish working together.
2. What is your favorite thing about working at Madrone?
My favorite thing about working at Madrone Landscape is the culture. We have some unique characters and everyone is free to be themselves. We spend most of our adult lives at work, so it is important that we make the best of it. The support I feel from everyone, and the comradery I see really makes me feel good about working here.
3. What is your favorite project that you’ve worked on and why?
My favorite project is Halter Ranch Vineyard. Before I came on in 2007, Madrone had already installed several projects on the property. When I started working with Halter Ranch, there were several multi-firm design and construction collaborations for various projects. Everyone involved shared a pride in the work. It was fun to work with the ownership and other trades with the common goal of producing the best product we could. Halter Ranch’s internal team shares a lot of our core values like stewardship, quality, teamwork, and integrity. Not to mention, we have installed some of the most beautiful landscapes of our portfolio there. We have won 3 county and statewide CLCA awards in 2012 and 2016, notably 1st place Large Commercial Construction in 2016 for the Tasting Room Landscape. Having a stoked team that works well together and produces award winning projects is a true privilege. To add to that, the property is open to the public 7 days a week and it is great to be able to enjoy the landscape and share it with others. Win, win, win!
4. What is your favorite, or least favorite, plant and why?
My favorite plant is ever-evolving and it really comes from emotions and horticultural nerdiness. If you are not a plant nerd, you may want to skip this section ;). Generally, I get excited about seeing California native plants in their prime season. Right now in summer, Mimulus aurantiacus, Mimulus ‘Cone Peak,’ Trichostema lanatum are pretty awesome mid-summer bloomers, with the Trichstema having one of the coolest scents. In the winter and spring, Salvia spathacea is beautifully blooming and fragrant, while the Satureja douglasii is the most refreshing herby mint scent of all. In fall, the Zauschneria (way more fun to say than Epilobium) is a showstopper. Basically, growing up in California, then learning the plants, allows me to flash back to memories exploring the woods as a kid. If I step on a Gnaphalium californicum, it smells just like maple syrup and brings me back to the walk home from the bus stop in 5th grade, where we would step on them. Native trees are also very dear to me. I grew up in a mixed evergreen forest with Quercus agrifolia, Quercus lobata, Quercus keloggii, Acer macrophyllum, Arbutus menziesii, Heteromeles arbutifolia, Umbellularia californica, and Sequoia sempervirens. Being in a forest feels like home to me, anywhere in the world. Finally, the almighty tomato, my first introduction to gardening. I owe my career to growing tomatoes as a kid and developing a great appreciation for how good a home-grown tomato can taste. The connections to plants in my youth definitely shaped me as a person. The beauty of horticulture is that it is limitless with cool things to learn every day.
When it comes to landscape installation, I have a different set of favorites and least favorites based on performance. As I see more landscapes mature, I tend to like to design a majority of long-lived low maintenance plants with far less perennials and high maintenance flowering plants. There is nothing worse than showing up to a landscape 5 years later to see that it was not maintained to your vision and plants have died. Therefore, my pragmatic favorite plants are: Rhamnus californica ‘Leatherleaf’, Chondropetalum tectorum, Carex divulsa, Arctostaphylos (several good Manzanita), Quercus (agrifolia & lobata), Pistacia chinensis, Cedrus deodora, Cistus ‘Sunset’, Muhlenbergia rigens, Pennisetum spathiolatum, Agave ‘Frosty Blue’, and of course Arbutus ‘Marina’. My least favorite plants are invasive pests such as Cortadera selloana, Ehrhart acalcina, Arundo donax, Delairea odorata, Stipa tenuissima, and Cytisus scoparius. These plants threaten our native California landscape – which means a lot to me.
5. What’s one of the things on your bucket list?
On my bucket list is getting my Landscape Architecture License. I haven’t needed it personally to do my job, but it is something I could get this year with the little I have remaining in the process. Life has a way of changing plans, and it has been evading me thus far. Free time to study is what it will take. I will get it done, and hopefully very soon.