Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben DiFilippo.
Hi Ben, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Back in 2017, the light bulb went off on a small organic farm in Lafayette, Colorado, to be a land steward. After another farming stint in Southern California and reconnecting with my now wife in Tennessee, I joined AmeriCorps, serving the nonprofit Sustainable Future Center, to address food insecurity and teach sustainable food production through a permaculture garden project in Knoxville. From there, I found another AmeriCorps position in Kent, Washington, to serve a community garden for World Relief Seattles Resiliency Team. Moved up to Seattle after that in 2020, joining a landscape crew at the height of the pandemic. After being a crew lead for 4 years, I decided to start my own business- City Gardening.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As smooth as it could be! It takes a while for anyones path to take shape. I graduated with a geology degree, was supposed to be my father’s research assistant in the Philippines to start my career as an environmental scientist, but that fell through while living on the farm in Colorado and decided in that moment that gardening was the path. It was hard finding the way to go in a field as broad and diverse as horticulture, agriculture, land management, with no educational background and limited experience as a simple farmhand. From there I took classes, volunteered, joined Master Gardener organizations to learn, watched webinars, but really learned from experience in the field, to get a baseline to do it competently and efficiently. Getting into the industry at the height of the pandemic was certainly a challenge, finishing AmeriCorps in 2020 with limited options, only to join a garden crew to be outside, eventually learning the trade to be competent enough to do it on my own, becoming more of a great opportunity rather than an obstacle or challenge!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about City Gardening ?
City Gardening offers simple residential garden services to the Greater Seattle Area. We see clients at any frequency that works with them, from single projects, to seasonal cleanups or monthly visits. Whether it’s waking the garden up in spring time, putting it to sleep in the fall, pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, shaping your trees or shrubs, we’re capable of performing a variety of work to get your garden looking the way it should, all in accordance with your budget. While we’re capable of caring for the garden for you or offering a consultation, we’ll also work with you, as a garden coach, to share knowledge and empower you to be more comfortable with your garden.
What sets us apart is our Ala carte service, our attention to detail and plant knowledge. We can work on the yard in its entirety or just the hedge, the apple tree, the planters. Details are very important, where we notice patterns, colors, a theme, the spectrum of wild to manicured. We see what the garden is supposed to look like given the structure, and walk backwards to know what needs to get done to get it back. We know plants, understanding the need to create a system conducive to healthy, low maintenance, productive landscapes.
We’re proud of our brand as urban horticulture experts. Gardening in the city provides unique challenges and opportunities, as gardens are important sanctuaries for people living busy, urban lives.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Get as much experience in a variety of settings as you can to find out what you enjoy and what you don’t enjoy. Stick with it! It’s a difficult journey finding your passion, painful at times, but it pays off when you’re doing what you love and it benefits your customers in more ways than one.
I wish I knew how difficult the ‘start your own business’ thing would’ve been. It was nice just being a lead, showing up to the job and only being responsible for getting it done. There was certainly a learning curve to all the administrative stuff on the back end, probably could’ve benefitted from some business classes, specific to this industry.
What I really wish I deeply contemplated before all this was what did I really want to do all along. You rush through college to get a degree, to pass the exam, not really thinking about the exact job or career as much as just making it to class. Would’ve been nice to think more about the destination, the end goal, but it’s hard to forecast all that when you’re just going with the flow, the expectation of going to college, getting a degree, getting a job, just trusting that it’s all going to work out.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://citygardening206.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/citygardening206/
