About Marisa
My relationship with land and plants began in childhood, tending vegetables and flowers alongside my parents. By the time I was fifteen, I was already working in diversified vegetable production, and thus I embarked on two decades of professional regenerative farming, teaching, and community food systems work. At The Mountain School in Vermont, I helped manage a 400-acre organic farm with orchards, animals, hay fields, and a sugar bush. As Farm Manager, I trained hundreds of students and faculty in ecological farming, permaculture, and soil-restoring practices. I also designed perennial vegetable and herbal tea gardens and helped develop food systems education curriculum.
​​Alongside farming, I studied permaculture design, wild harvesting, and ecological restoration, always with the goal of helping people reconnect with the living world around them. Over time my focus expanded from growing food to creating gardens that are not only productive, but also healing, resilient, and beautiful.
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I’ve had a lifelong interest in health and healing and my design work centers both ecological and human health. For a decade right out of college I immersed myself in nutritional studies and the world of food as medicine, working as an assistant to a health counselor and acupuncturist and learning about traditional diets, gut health, and herbal therapeutics. I integrate this knowledge in custom plant selection: nourishing foods and herbs to support the health of the clients as well as the ecosystem.
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Since 2022, I’ve focused on landscape design that balances beauty with function: gardens that awaken the senses, provide food and medicine, restore native habitat, and invite people outdoors to engage with the life that surrounds them. My background in dance continues to influence my design eye — the shape of a plant, its timing of bloom and fade, the textures and rhythms of a garden all come together like choreography.
Through Nourish & Bloom Landscape Studio, I create landscapes that nourish body, soul, and soil — elegant, ecological spaces where people, plants, and ecosystems can flourish together.
