We Are Ready To Help
The Birch Meadow Garden Care team is a mighty group who have been gardening at homes, teaching gardening, and exploring gardens of all types, all over the world, for most of our lives.
Our mission is to work with you to make sure your garden space is healthy and well cared for while we provide information and encouragement.
Our goal is to help you enjoy the potential bounty of your yard to the fullest extent possible.
Mary Beth Berkley
Owner
Mary Beth has been messing around with gardens since she could walk. With a grandfather who was a botanist raised in Appalachia by a mother who was the local herbalist and midwife and a grandmother who was a naturalist that enjoyed visiting arboretums, nature trails and botanical gardens, she has absorbed information about plants in every setting from formal gardens to vegetable beds to the wild woods. She has taken courses in botany, land management, permaculture and pruning and has taught classes herself in farming and gardening. She is most interested in raising food plants and maintaining the health of all plants. A healthy plant in a healthy ecological system is a beautiful plant.
Kelley Wiley
Operations Manager/Office Manager/Gardener
Kelley fell in love with gardening when she moved to Wilton, NH and had 2 acres of land to work with. Her two sons were her inspiration on learning everything there was for growing our own food, canning, and wine making. Now many years later and living in Hillsborough, NC, she is incredibly happy and lucky to be working with mother nature once again. She draws her inspiration and joy from both her past experiences and working with the other women in this job to help continue our relationship with nature and humans in a healthy way.
Karla Boyce-Awai
Supervisor/Gardener/Designer
Karla Grew up in Trinidad and Tobago where she was influenced by her Mother’s and her Grandmother’s passion for gardening. When Karla moved to the UK at 17 to go to boarding school and university, she had no garden. So she went to the Chelsea Flower Show as often as she could and visited many English gardens and parks and grew some houseplants. She moved to the US 23 years ago where she finally was able to start practicing in her own garden. She currently gardens on 2.8 acres in Hillsborough and keeps chickens and bees. She is constantly reading, volunteering, experimenting, and observing in and about gardens. She is taking classes in horticulture at Alamance Community College. Karla has traveled extensively with her family and always insists on visiting gardens wherever they go. Some highlights include Sissinghurst, The Humble Administrator’s Garden, The Garden of the Master of Nets-Suzhou, The Sydney Botanical Gardens, De Hortus Amsterdam, and Potager de Roi at Versailles. Yes, she was more impressed with the vegetable garden than the actual garden at Versailles. Karla cannot believe that she gets paid to do what she loves!
Jared Wiley
Supervisor/Gardener/Toolmaster/Estimator
My name is Jared, and I have been with Birch Meadow for quite a few years now. I mostly do the heavy manual labor for our company, especially any of the odd or more difficult jobs like moving heavy objects and cutting down tall or larger plants and a whole lot more. I am also the one who usually handles hardscape design, such as stone or gravel pathways, stone or wood walls around beds, things of that nature. I really enjoy this work, and it’s wonderful to help care for all of our clients’ unique and beautiful gardens!
Lauren Lightheart
Gardener/Designer
Lauren believes in the physical and mental nourishment that plants bring to people. Her passion for nature culminates in her creating optimal environments in which plants thrive, in order to maintain their incredible service to our world. She loves the idea of ecological connectivity impacting the land, people, and their goals.
Lauren graduated from N.C. State University with a BS in Plant and Soil Science with a concentration in Agroecology. She is the third generation in her family to have gone to college to study plants. Out of college, she worked as a production assistant and later field coordinator for an organic fruit and vegetable farm, and aided in establishing the foundations for their business.
The main purpose of the farm was to grow food for community members in need, providing them with 80% of the produce grown in the fields. The remaining 20% went to local businesses to make a profit and keep the farm running. Standards for quality produce, great agricultural practice, and meeting the needs of the community were paramount. The team pushed themselves to learn, adapt, and excel at what they set out to do. After the farm got its footing, land was set aside for flowers, and Lauren's curiosity piqued in a new direction.
Flowers provided another kind of nourishment for people and she wanted to explore it.
Lauren went on to manage a cut flower farm in Efland. While many of her farm skills were transferable, flowers needed a different touch to flourish. What she enjoyed most was that it was all in her hands. As a field coordinator on the farm, she could only go so far in teaching volunteers agricultural practices, as it was more efficient to meet demands with modern machinery. However, the knowledge she gathered from the flower farm could be shared with any interested party. While managing the farm, Lauren also received training in floral design and learned form, space, texture, color, and line to create pieces for restaurants and wedding displays.
Working alongside plants is a living dream, and Lauren will continue to master her craft and provide what nourishment she can to those around her.
Kell Zafer
Gardener/Designer
kellm@birchmeadowgc.com
Kell has a BA and MA in History and Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and decided to further pursue their love of digging in the dirt by joining our team. They have been gardening as a hobby for many years and have a passion for sustainability, ecological restoration, and seed saving.
Sara Hinchliff
Gardener
Sara spent her childhood outdoors. Swimming in the Finger Lakes of upstate New York, chasing the animals around her Uncle’s small farm, and helping her grandmother in her backyard garden. After college Sara and her husband lived in various places around the world with their 3 children in tow, always on the lookout for new outdoor adventures. While overseas Sara completed a Master of Library Science, a degree she sought out of a pure love of learning. After years spent moving from place to place Sara and her family made Chapel Hill home. She now has a space of her own to cultivate and care for where she focuses on incorporating native plants and exploring landscape design through a sustainable lens.
Amy Moss
Gardener
I am a self-taught gardener from way back! Originally from PA, I started learning how to grow vegetables and herbs in the late 80s. Then I focused on the native wildflowers, trees, birds, insects, etc. Since moving to North Carolina, in 2021, my knowledge has expanded to learning landscaping and ornamental gardening in the southern climate. As I work with the fabulous Birch Meadow crew, my love and knowledge for gardening is continuing to blossom.
I am also excited to be using my carpentry skills for designing and building hardscape projects for the Birch Meadows Garden Care company. I had built my tiny house on wheels in PA and moved it to an incredibly lovely spot near Saxapahaw, a community of tiny houses along a beautiful meadows next to Haw Creek.
My favorite thing about my job is being in nature, surrounded by bird songs, the elements, sunshine, clouds and discovering all the insects and plants or creatures living in the soil of the lovely clients, whom we work for beautifying their space.
Shannon Wiley
Office Assistant, Plant Wrangler
Shannon is a retired Waldorf teacher who mostly spends his time caring for his family and enjoys puttering around his garden and yard between writing attempts. He has been working part time as our Office Assistant, MaryBeth support person, occasional Gopher, and all around Plant Wrangler.
