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Our Founder & President

Alrie Middlebrook
Founder & President

Alrie Middlebrook is a committed advocate and practitioner of the sustainable lifestyle, landscape professional and California native plant specialist. Her San Jose, California-based build/design firm, Middlebrook Gardens, has installed over 150 California native gardens and remains on the leading edge of the rising sustainability movement.

She published the California native plant cookbook, Eating California, and co-authored the groundbreaking new book Designing California Native Gardens: The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens, with renowned field botanist, Dr. Glenn Keator. She produced the first full color glossy magazine focusing on sustainable construction and native gardening, Green Heart, named after her regional newspaper column.

Middlebrook’s native gardens are based on ecologically appropriate plant species and cutting edge sustainable technology and techniques. Advantages to a native garden include reduced costs, greater efficiency and ecological wellness. Her marketing and garden installation program, Lose The Lawn, offers low cost, simple solutions to “lose your lawn, “and upgrade to a pesticide free, water saving, low maintenance native landscape. For more information please visit the website Lose the Lawn!.

Alrie Middlebrook is committed to educating the public and promoting sustainability through native gardening. Her many workshops and speaking engagements at diverse venues throughout the State of California have provided key forums promoting critical knowledge and understanding. Her support of community efforts to embrace sustainability has spawned recent projects like Granada Native Gardens, Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, River Street Historical Gardens and her co-founding of The California Native Garden Foundation (CNGF). For more information please visit The California Native Garden website.