Staff Highlights and Bios
Kara Crissey
Kara Crissey is a landscape and garden designer who opened Good Earth Gardeners in 2003.
Kara studied landscape design at the University of Maryland, the Community College of Baltimore County and at Jardin d'Art et D'Essais in Normandy, France.
Applying a thorough knowledge of horticulture to a blended aesthetic of modern and traditional, she creates gardens and landscapes that integrate human communities with the natural world. Her approach to planting design is deliberately layered gardens. Carefully planned intricate compositions serve year-round drama while allowing for ecologically intelligent maintenance practices.
Michael Barry
Mike has been the Operations Manager for Good Earth Gardeners since early 2022.
Mike brings a dynamic and analytical mindset to the team at Good Earth, putting practices and systems in place that enable the team's creative potentials to become reality. His twenty years of Operations and Management experience across multiple industries allows him to draw on a variety of skill sets to help the business
thrive and grow.
Hannah Megill
Hannah has had a passion for gardening since she was a little girl. Growing up around her grandmother's garden, an award-winning ecological wildlife habitat, she has learned to appreciate and cultivate native gardens. In her 2 years at Good Earth Gardeners, she has been able to fully express her love for gardening around Anne Arundel County. Hannah is a Level 1 certified Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional, and is currently attending the Community College of Baltimore County for a Landscape Design certification. She enjoys installing rain gardens and maintaining native landscapes, but every aspect of gardening is a true joy for her. She is grateful to spend every work day surrounded by knowledgeable and reliable gardeners, and is always looking for new things to learn about gardening.
In her free time, Hannah loves tending to her vegetable farm, producing music, and crocheting blankets. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music Production from the renowned Berklee College of Music.
ZAC Lawhon
In 2020, Zac decided to leave his career as an art teacher to pursue a career in horticulture. The lessons of patience, pre-planning, problem solving, and nurturing others from the teaching field come into play daily as he works with his colleagues, clients, and their gardens at Good Earth Gardeners.
Zac studied teaching, drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation art at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, and graduated with his Masters in Teaching in 2012. His first garden design was for the Ellen McDaniel Memorial Garden at Baltimore Lab School in 2018. That same year, he also became a Baltimore City Master Gardener, a position he still holds today. In 2021 he earned a certificate in permaculture design, and in 2923 he began taking classes on Integrated Pest Management.
He is most interested in using native plants to develop beautiful spaces that pollinators love, and in creating food forest spaces that are also aesthetically pleasing.
Favorite native plant: blueberries, vaccinium angustifolium and vaccinium corymbosum. They are gorgeous, delicious, and support 400 species of native animal.
Caitlyn Whitesell
Catie started her Horticulture career at a local plant nursery. She began working for Good Earth with little gardening experience but was quick to become plant-obsessed. When Catie isn’t working for Good Earth, she’s experimenting with different flower beds at home or growing vegetables on her small farm. When she doesn’t have her hands in the dirt, Catie enjoys spending time with her family and friends — mostly her three dogs and snowboarding during the winter months. Catie loves to collaborate with her team to create a beautiful space for our clients to enjoy.
Catie became a Certified Arborist in 2023 and would love to chat with you about trees!
Jordon Taylor
Jordon is a Maryland based gardener with a profound love for learning and exploration. Driven by a deep-rooted passion for horticulture, Jordon specializes in organic gardening, houseplant care, and plant maintenance. With a keen eye for detail and a commitment to continuous learning, he strives to create sustainable indoor and outdoor spaces with creativity, expertise, and a deep regard for environmental impact. Spending much of his time either crafting Dungeons and Dragons characters or tending to his own extensive interior plant collection, Jordon believes in the transformative power of gardening to foster connections, and promote mental and physical wellness as a therapeutic practice.
Ella Greer
With a deep appreciation of both art and nature, Ella understands how to develop a garden from its beginning to completion. Working toward a career in landscape design and environmental stewardship, she continues to learn about plant culture from native perennials to trees . With Ella's artistic flair and landscape knowledge, each garden she nurtures is left well tended and more beautiful.
Favorite plant: Aclepsias Incarnata, Swamp Milkweed (Host plant for the Monarch butterfly)
