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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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 an 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 been working in the residential landscape design field since 2015 and has worked with Mariposa since 2018. She works primarily as a landscape designer for Mariposa while occasionally working in garden care and installation.
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Lauren grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and has been an outdoor enthusiast her whole life. From a young age, she enjoyed camping trips with her family, regular skiing trips to Lake Tahoe, tide pool adventures on the coast, and hiking all over the peninsula and Marin. With a passion for the natural world, she pursued a Bachelors of Science degree in Conservation and Resource Studies from UC Berkeley where she deepened her understanding of sustainability and the importance of conserving and restoring habitat for beneficial insects and birds. She worked at a CA Native Plant nursery for 3 years growing plants for restoration projects around the bay area. With a solid background in the cultural requirements of hundreds of CA Native plants she started her own landscaping company building and maintaining habitat gardens. She soon moved on to working with Mariposa as Crew Leader and project manager, seeing our beautiful designs to completion. She enjoys traveling, cooking, soaking in hot springs, hiking with her little dog Pip, and gardening in her urban homestead in Oakland.
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Lauren Bennett
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Sarah loves being outside, learning new skills and techniques, and being a part of a team that builds beautiful habitat and structures with best practices in mind. Outside of work Sarah loves to travel, bike, drink coffee, gawk at strangers' dogs, and catch up with wonderful friends. |
Sarah Beeston
Donka Hardy |
Donka grew up along the shores of the Monterey Bay and spent summers sleeping under the stars at an overnight camp deep in the hills above "America's Salad Bowl." Their love of water polo and the ocean guided them to pursue a degree at UC Santa Cruz and as the story goes an Oceanography major quickly transformed into a BA in Feminist Studies and a full time job with a nearby organic farm. Never one for working indoors and suddenly a foodie due to the incredible perks that come with farming, Donka spent the next decade exploring different farming practices in a variety of climates across the country, gathering irrigation and carpentry skills along the way. Most recently, after hiding out on a quiet organic peach farm in the wildfire-ridden Sierra foothills, the desire for community connection and social interaction inspired Donka and their pup Traeger to move to Berkeley...three days later, the pandemic shut everything down! Donka has been honored to join the Mariposa team as a crew lead and is thrilled to work alongside folks who share similar core values.
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Meg Dodge |
Meg grew up in several different states and learned early on that she could use her imagination to create whole worlds and stories. Drawing and writing became important outlets from a young age that she still practices today. Initially on a pre-veterinary tract at Cornell University, Meg discovered the complex and fulfilling world of plants while interning for a cooperative extension community garden in upstate New York. A month later, she signed on to double major in Plant Science in addition to Animal Science. Since then she’s interned for Central Park conservancy in New York City, worked for a large scale plant nursery on the New Jersey Shore, and moved to the Bay Area after being accepted into a Masters of Landscape Architecture program at UC Berkeley. Landscape Architecture turned out to not be the ideal fit, so after one year in the program she returned to her gardening roots (get it?). Today she works with Mariposa as a Crew Lead, managing the day-to-day tasks of building gardens to ensure a timely and beautiful product. In her free time, she reads, hangs out with her dog Richie, and tries to absorb as much information about plants and their care as her mind can hold—current obsession is rare, tropical houseplants. Want to talk plants? Meg’s your gal.
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Jakoby Fleming |
Hi my name is Jakoby and I’m originally from Black Diamond, Washington but moved to Berkeley about a year ago for a fresh start on life. I have always wanted to work in gardens and around plants since i was a young lad. My hobbies are skateboarding, snowboarding, reading and hanging out with my cats, snake and girlfriend.
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Kari Lodrup |
Kari is a city dweller with a nature lover's adventurous spirit. She was born and raised in the hot concrete desert of Los Angeles, California. Since she was born, she has visited her mother's family in Mexico. She would touch down in another megatropolis, usually Mexico City or Guadalajara. Visiting her family in these towns heavily influenced a passion and pride for her culture. She found her love for gardening during an internship with the San Francisco based nonprofit, Nature in the City. After spending the summer of 2021 exploring Alaska and working on a flower farm, Kari now calls Oakland home. Even though she loves spending time in the wild, away from humans, she loves people and hearing their stories. Community is important to her. She hopes that through creating balanced ecosystems by means of native city gardens she can help alleviate social injustices and environmental issues. Her dream is for all people, regardless of economic or racial background, whether raised in the country or the inner-city, to feel connected to nature.
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License #1038752
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Mariposa Gardening & Design
Address: 2323 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612 Mailing Address: PO Box 24072 Oakland, CA 94623 info@mariposagardening.com |
