Alissa Hartman has been gardening professionally for over 20 years, and has been the owner of Seed Garden Designs since 2006. Alissa has a bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio and a masters degree in Education from Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. She has training in permaculture, herbal studies, and is certified in large scale rainwater harvesting and water reclamation through the Watershed Management Group in Tucson, AZ. This well rounded background assists with teaching and instruction in a classroom, one-on-one tutorials and trainings, as well as presenting at events. This unique training is the base for incorporating ecologically conscious, low-maintenance, edible, native, and wildlife attracting plants into landscapes that are functional and unique. Alissa spends time in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, OR and the Southwest in Tucson, AZ, and loves the qualities that each environment holds. While the two spaces seem dramatically different, they lend to a deeper understanding of each other with soil composition, plant growth and native habitats, beneficial water movement and harvesting, and wildlife migration patterns.

After fully recovering from a traumatic brain injury, she also experienced the importance of adapting spaces to complement the changing needs of their stewards, and the great importance of continuing to work in the joyful and empowering space of a garden. She finds incredible reward in connecting with people who choose to remain active outdoors, and loves working with individuals with varying abilities to problem solve ways to make physical challenges easier, and gardening a practical reality. As a certified fitness instructor, Alissa loves to incorporate onsite individualized mobility exercises, balance and strength training to maintain access to the labor of working outdoors. 

Seed Garden Designs works with the Columbia Land Trust and the Portland Audubon Society’s Backyard Habitat Program and is a certified EcoBiz. Alissa has presented permaculture and urban landscape design planning at trade shows and ecological conferences in Oregon and Washington, has taught community education classes at Portland Community College, and local community centers and cooperatives in Portland, OR.

Seed Garden Designs supports diversity, equity, and inclusion in all their work and offerings. We believe in the importance of understanding the long standing history of supporting residence on the current lands we call home, and as visitors to this land extend deep gratitude for our presence here.