Since 1982, we’ve been helping Floridians transition their landscapes into healthy and sustainable gardens that help support life using native and edible plants.
Our family-owned, women-run team includes two landscape designers, with 43 years of combined experience specializing in Florida native plants. Our full time staff includes Master Naturalists, Master Gardeners, horticulturalists, and a wildlife biologist.
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MANAGER / LANDSCAPE DESIGNER/ GARDEN CONSULTANT
Florida Master Naturalist, BFA Art Studio, BA Art History, Graphic Designer
she/her
Since 2010, Annie has been helping to manage the Nursery under the training and guidance of her award-winning mother and native plant guru, Laurel Schiller, owner and founder of the Nursery.
Annie is the head manager and the landscape designer of the Nursery. Her art and design background along with her many years of experiential knowledge from gardening with native plants enable her to create naturally beautiful and hardy native plant gardens for others. She also designs and maintains the gardens at the nursery. Annie maintains the Nursery website, its social media and her eco-florist side project, William’s Wildflowers, www.williamswildflowers.com. This on-going project focuses on presenting native wildflowers and plants and naturally-grown local flowers in floral arrangements for events and weddings.
Annie is a graduate of the University of Florida’s Master Naturalist Program. She continues to study and apply ecological landscape design with both native and edible plants and sustainable and organic plant nursery practices. She enjoys leaning about bioregional herbalism and exploring Florida’s natural areas with her family and friends.
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NURSERY MANAGER
Florida Master Naturalist, M.S. International Resource Conservation
she/her
sophie@floridanativeplants.com
Sophie DeMartine loves to help our clients find the best native and edible plants for their landscapes!
Sophie is a Sarasota native who comes to us by way of Montana where she pursued her MS in International Resource Conservation and Development. Her masters’ work, funded by the US Forest Service International Programs, focused on creating a large-scale native plant nursery used to plant a migration corridor for isolated and endangered highly evolved chimpanzees in Guinea in West Africa. She also worked at the University of Montana as the Program Manager for the USFS International Seminar on Protected Area Management. Prior to her adventures in Montana and West Africa, Sophie worked for the US Department of Commerce at the Afghanistan and Iraq Investment and Reconstruction Task Force after she graduated with her BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University.
During her travels she developed a fondness for the natural world and strongly believes that spending time outdoors is good for the soul.
Sophie finally found her dream job, working outside with native plants and people! She is also becoming a Florida Master Naturalist.
When not managing the nursery, she spends time exploring natural Florida with her husband Matt and pup Ellie. Ellie also works at the nursery with the very important job of greeting clients.
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C0-OWNER / FOUNDER / MANAGER / GROWER
B. S. Wildlife Biology, M. A. Ecology
she/her
Laurel has a degree in wildlife biology from Oregon State University and a degree in systematics and ecology from Indiana State University. She taught biology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. She also worked as a mammalogist at the New York Zoological Society (Bronx Zoo) and at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. She is a Florida Master Gardener, a Florida Master Naturalist and a former National Landscape Design Critic for the Florida Garden Club.
Since moving to Venice, Florida in 1994 with her husband and three children, Laurel's interests have been channeled into preserving the natural environment. She served two terms as vice-president of the Florida Native Nursery Association, Chair of the State Education Committee for the Association. and Vice-President of the Manasota Chapter of the Florida Grape Growers Association. A former member of the board of directors for the Friends of the Rails to Trails Park in Sarasota, she sat for many years on the Sarasota County Parks Board, was vice chair for the Sarasota Tree Advisory Council and is a past president of the Friends of Oscar Scherer Park, Inc.
She also served two terms as a Sarasota County Planning Commissioner and is the former chairman of the City of Venice Planning Commission.
Laurel has designed native plantings for natural areas for homeowners as well as homeowner associations focusing on native plant restoration and mitigation work for wildlife habitat. She has worked on native plant designs for numerous school sites and on state, county and city lands.
Laurel is on the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens' Speaker's Bureau and Sarasota's Peace Center Speaker's Bureau. She presents programs and seminars on Florida native plants, natural Florida landscaping and eco-gardening to groups and societies throughout Southwest Florida.
With her former nursery partner, Dan Walton, Laurel wrote “Natural Florida Landscaping” published in 2007 by Pineapple Press and available at the Nursery and on Amazon.
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BILLING / PERMITTING
he/him
Joining the Florida Native Plants Nursery in January 2010, James brought with him 15 years of managerial experience in the environmental field. He currently manages billing and payroll for the nursery.
Tim Cash, Founder of Florida Scrub Growers (1954-1993)
Tim Cash
(1954-1993)
FOUNDER OF FLORIDA SCRUB GROWERS
Tim founded Florida Scrub Growers, a native plant nursery in Old Miakka Florida, in 1982. He wanted to grow local species of native plants and use them in landscaping instead of exotics. This was unheard of at the time and native plants were not widely available. To do this he bought ten undeveloped acres in Old Miakka and devoted much of his time to collecting local seeds from surrounding hammocks, wetlands and scrub and growing plants for the landscape market. He was especially inspired by the scrubby flatwoods plants found on the ESLOC Old Miakka site across from the nursery. He envisioned using many of the plants adapted to this upland community in local landscaping.
Tim was a visionary with a real sensitivity for the environment. He gave lectures and educated everyone with whom he came in contact. He helped found the Sarasota-Manatee Native Plant Society. He worked with Sarasota County on wetlands mitigation projects and donated mangroves and other aquatic plants to the Sarasota Bay Estuary projects. He provided many of the original native plantings for the Florida House, Sarasota County’s sustainable living educational site.
Tim was a leader in the evolution of butterfly gardening and provided butterflies and butterfly plants for the Gulf Coast World of Science.
Tim gave generously of his time to the Historic Old Miakka Community where he lived. He helped roof the Methodist Church and Old Miakka School house and was active in the local volunteer fire department. Tim died on Oct. 2, 1993.
All that remember Tim remember his passion for what he did. He shared what he learned and generously gave his time to educate others and promote the use of native plants. He said his goal was to recruit enough people to return Florida to a more natural state.
The owners of the Florida Native Plants Nursery (formally Florida Scrub Growers) are honored that the Old Miakka Park Loop Trail was named for Tim Cash, our founder, on the 25th Anniversary year of the founding of our nursery.