Who We Are
We are an Oakland based
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We are a Bay Area landscape design and build company, dedicated to creating ecologically sound gardens that are beautiful and well-crafted. At Mariposa, we fuse art and ecology into the landscape, bringing beauty to the practice of sustainability. In every garden, we see a unique opportunity to reconnect a space with its natural systems. Exposing nature’s existing elegant patterns allows us to create artfully designed spaces that complement urban environments.
Mariposa is committed to restoring ecologically sound outdoor spaces in urban areas. We do this by sourcing local materials, combining low-water and native plants, building dry stacked stone structures, and understanding water in order to effectively conserve water in the garden. |
Our team is knowledgable and passionate.
Andrea Hurd |
In rural Oregon, Andrea’s family lived on an acre of land that supported fruit trees, berries, a large vegetable garden, and many flowers, especially roses. Growing up, Andrea would always spend her Saturday mornings in the garden with her mom, learning how to care for it all. In the early 90s, at Prescott College, Andrea earned her Permaculture Design Certification. Andrea has used Permaculture as the guiding design principle for all of the gardens that she works on and designs. As a member of The Stone Foundation, an international stonemason’s trade association, Andrea has gained training in the art of dry-stacked stone building in England, Scotland, Mallorca, and Cambodia. Andrea’s garden designs feature her love for nature, her artistic eye, as well as her love for well-built dry-stacked stonework.
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Allie Wilson Plasek |
Allie has been actively pursuing ways for people to connect with their ecosystems and food-systems for the last decade. In her pursuit she became obsessed with soil building for the health of ecosystems and as a way to store carbon. Now she likes to think of herself as a "soil flipper" -- taking dirt or lifeless soil, and building it up to be teaming with life. Her role as a gardener stems from this excitement and passion.
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Elizabeth Sarmiento |
Elizabeth Sarmiento, is native Spanish-speaker with a commitment to social justice, community building, and resource conservation. Spending her formative years in Honduras Central America provided her with a multi-layered understanding of the cultural roots of Latin Americans in the U.S., as well as an appreciation of diversity.
As a child her experience of living close to the land, healthy streams and rivers, abundant wildlife, in the rich tropical forests, and working in the land gave her a deep love for nature and its innate value in our lives. Her life has been an unbroken string of social justice and environmental activism ever since. From the Director of San Jose State University's Environmental Resource Center, when she was a student, to Community Organizer for Service Immigrant Rights and Education Network (SIREN), where she founded the first Immigrants for the Environment projects in 2009, to the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara County League of Conservation Voters and President of Human Agenda board. In November 2009, she joined Acterra as Outreach Coordinator for the Green@Home program. In this capacity, she initiated the conservation workshop program to engage the Latino community in Silicon Valley in climate change and conservation education. This resulted in her Fellowship from the National Audubon Society in 2012-2013 and in January 2014, she was appointed to the Santa Clara Valley Water District Environmental and Water Resources Committee Meeting. To link and put the climate and social justice into practice in 2015 Elizabeth launched Smart Yards: An Ecological Gardening and Design Cooperative based in San José with the goal of fostering urban biodiversity, while transforming yards into beautiful and ecological outdoor living spaces for families and communities to enjoy. In February 2020, Elizabeth joined our Mariposa team as the South Bay Manager and Crew Leader. |
Julia Bell |
Julia Bell has worked in ecological landscape design and restoration in the Monterey and San Francisco Bay areas for the past 20 years. Her background in fine art, design and botany fuse with a love for California wild-landscape. She sees gardens as living sculpture as well as part of the greater ecosystem. Working within a cooperative reflects the rich collaborative process among designers, clients, horticulturalists, contractors and craftspeople that propel each project through to a successful ecological landscape.
Formal education from UCSC (BA Art, BA Biology), Cabrillo and West Valley College (Landscape Design & Architecture, Horticulture, Engineering Technology, Graphic Design, etc) has provided a solid backdrop for continual ongoing studies. Special interests include: California native plants, pollinator attraction (birds, butterflies & bees), edible/ usable gardens, succulents, Permaculture, and forging the future of sustainable land management. |
Elizabeth Fazzio |
Elizabeth enjoys starting and running wholistic businesses being people centered. She has successfully started, run, and sold two businesses. She currently is earning her MBA. When she is not being an amazing woman business-owner, she spends time with her two kids and new grandbaby.
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Dan Cordie |
Raised in the lakes country of Minnesota Dan created a strong connection with nature at young age. He attended school at the University of North Dakota to study entrepreneurship and marketing. Over the following ten years his time was heavily invested in launching startup projects and growing online communities. A few years ago he became inspired by permaculture and received his permaculture design certification. Next up he wanted to be a part of work that had a greater impact while positively affecting our planet. Two years ago he launched a non-profit to reestablish school gardens, educate young people, develop community, and fight for food justice. He is excited to be a worker owner with Mariposa Garden & Design Cooperative where he focuses on garden care and the installation of habitat gardens.
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Gina Trautner |
Gina grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah and spent much of her youth outdoors, skiing, hiking, backpacking and camping which gave her an early appreciation for the natural environment. While attending Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, she became interested in learning more about gardening and plants while tending to a plot at the campus community gardens. She enjoyed her time in the garden so much she decided to focus her studies on a related topic and graduated with a Environmental Science degree with a focus on ecological restoration. She went on to study landscape architecture and received a Masters of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. She has over 3 years experience working in the residential landscape design field and works part time developing base maps and working in garden care and installation for Mariposa.
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License #1038752
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