Keepers, by Name and by Nature
Growers, Builders, and Stewards, at Home in Santa Cruz and the Greater South Bay
A landscape takes on the character of the hands that tend it. Ours are calloused, curious, and glad to be here: horticulturists, gardeners, and builders who grow food at home, trained through UCSC's famed Farm and Garden and seasoned by twenty years of this coast's soil and weather. Clients tell us they look forward to the days our crews come out. We think that says more about us than anything we could write here.
Meet the Keepers
There's a phrase we use inside the company: professional but personable. It means the work is done right and the people doing it are worth talking to. Ask anyone on our crew a question and you'll get the time of day, and probably a little more than you asked for, because most of us are growers ourselves and can't help it. These are the people behind the land.
Matthew Sutton
President
Matthew grew up in New England and headed west in 1997, finding his way to plants in Portland before training in sustainable agriculture took him to Italy, Wisconsin, and finally UCSC's Farm and Garden. When the training was done, he started pruning fruit trees around Santa Cruz and called the work what it was: Orchard Keepers. Twenty years later, ask him why the company exists and he'll tell you it's about relationship, supporting people's connection to their own little piece of land.
Kim Mayer
Maintenance Team Manager
Before Orchard Keepers, Kim traveled the world as a professional surfer, and the ocean taught her a respect for the environment that never left. She carried it into a degree in Environmental Studies and Earth Sciences at UCSC and then into more than fifteen years with our maintenance team, where her passion for growing food sustainably shapes the care of orchards across the region. Fifteen years of this community's fruit trees have thrived in her care.
Andy Webster
Installation Manager
Andy has been in landscaping since the sixth grade, when he mowed the family lawn for five dollars a week, hardscape blowing and irrigation repair included. The route from there ran through a Hydrology degree, habitat restoration, ecological stormwater work, nature-based youth mentoring, a contractor's license, and organic farming, all of it converging on the thing he does best: bridging horticulture and construction. These days his satisfaction comes from listening to what people dream of for their gardens, then guiding it into being.
Kate Silver
Maintenance Team Manager
Kate came to us in 2020 from small-scale diversified vegetable and flower farming, with a Nutritional Sciences degree that sparked a lasting fascination: how soil health shapes the nutrient density of food, and how that shapes all of us. She's collaborated with chefs, engineers, and food-system nonprofits, then earned a Landscape Architecture degree to braid it all together. On our maintenance team, that interdisciplinary eye means the gardens she tends are grown for beauty and for the table at once.
Amy Jackson
Office Manager
Amy spent a decade in corporate property and facilities management before trading it, happily, for a locally owned company with values she believes in. With a Psychology degree and a conviction that the most rewarding part of any job is the people, she's the link across all our teams and the voice you'll often reach first. Most mornings you can catch her riding her orange bike into the office, and lobbying everyone else to do the same.
And the Crews Who Carry It
Behind the names above are the installation and maintenance crews who do the daily keeping: trained throughout the year, growers in their own right, and hired as much for kindness as for skill. What clients tell us most often, after the pruning and the planting, is simply that they enjoyed having our people at their place. We work hard to deserve that.
Edible & Ecological Landscape Services
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Edible & Ecological Landscape Services ◆
Rooted Here, Together
The land shapes the people as much as the people shape the land. Schedule a consultation and meet the team caring for properties in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Portola Valley, Atherton, and the greater South Bay.