About Bobbie Schwartz

Plant a holic- n., an obsessive gardener who is excessively (inordinately) knowledgeable and passionate about gardens, their design, creation and purpose in daily life. See also Bobbie's Green Thumb. This definition characterizes Bobbie Schwartz, the proprietress of Bobbie's Green Thumb, which is a full-time business focusing on landscape consultation, design, installation and maintenance, lecturing and writing.

Most of Bobbie's designs are for residential properties, but she also has designed for industrial sites, corporations, a hospital and the city of Brecksville. Her landscape signature is the use of perennials, flowering shrubs and ornamental grasses to facilitate color and interest throughout the year.

An avid gardener for 35 years and a landscape designer for 25 years, she is continually learning from seminars and conventions of the trade associations to which she belongs. Her extensive travels to gardens and nurseries have contributed greatly to her knowledge of design and new plants.

Bobbie is actively involved in several industry organizations, among which are the Perennial Plant Association and the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (she is a certified member of APLD). She currently is Past President of APLD after having served for several years as chair of the Certification Committee.

She is a member of the Ohio Landscapers Association and writes a monthly column about perennials and grasses for its publication, "The Growing Concern." The column also is published by the Northern Ohio Perennial Society, of which she is a member. In addition, she writes a quarterly column on design for "The Buckeye," the publication of the Ohio Nursery & Landscape Association. Bobbie also has written articles for "American Nurseryman," "WaterShapes" and "Fine Gardening" and has contributed to "The Cleveland Garden Handbook," "Great Garden Shortcuts" and "Easy-Care Perennial Gardens."

Bobbie has received several design awards from the Perennial Plant Association, the Ohio Nursery & Landscape Association, the Ohio Landscapers Association and the Cleveland Botanical Garden/ASLA for residential, commercial and institutional designs.

She served a two-year term on the Board of the ONLA and during her chairmanship of the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association's Stock Survey Committee, she endeavored to make the survey as comprehensive and useful as possible by enlarging the perennials, ornamental grasses and groundcover sections. She still serves on that committee as well as the Plant Selection Committee and the Program Committee.

She is a past president of the Design Network, a Cleveland-area group of women working in various aspects of horticulture.

Since 1988, Bobbie has been lecturing locally at Cleveland Botanical Garden, the Holden Arboretum and nationally for botanical gardens and landscape associations on various aspects of design and perennial and ornamental grass gardening.