Growing to Love Landscaping
By Bill Spring
Five years ago, Marianne Simon felt trapped in a corporate job that offered few opportunities to use her creativity. Today she runs a landscape design company and creates beautiful environments intended to inspire the heart and nourish the soul. It wasn't easy to walk away from a steady paycheck to start her own business, but she has no regrets today.
Born in Paris in 1962, Simon moved with her family to New York a year later, and then to San Francisco in 1969. "Both of my parents were very artistic," she remembers, "so I had a rather bohemian childhood."
Simon's parents sent her to the American Conservatory Theater at the age of 8. She took acting classes and performed in plays.
In 1984, Simon graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in theater. Hesitant to try her luck in the competitive world of stage and screen, however, Simon stuck to the job she held while a student, working as a secretary for the National Park Service. "I kept doing the theater at night," she says, "but I never went for it wholeheartedly. Deep down, I didn't believe I was good enough."
When Simon was 25, she and her sister moved to Los Angeles. Marianne got married and began working in the administrative side of the film business, starting out at Robert Redford's Wildwood production company and moving to MGM Pictures in 1992.
After starting at MGM as a temp, Simon worked her way up in the International Television Distribution Department, eventually becoming a supervisor.
The money was good and the job was stable, but the corporate routine began to drain Simon's spirit and enthusiasm. "I found myself getting caught up in things like gossip and the pettiness of the work world, as opposed to the creation," she says.
"There was a big hole for a long time before I found the courage to say, 'I can't do this anymore.' "
In 1999, Marianne nourished her green thumb by taking horticulture classes through UCLA, but didn't find true inspiration until she began a class in water gardening. "The teacher talked about building ecosystems," she remembers. "And it was that idea of putting things in balance, as opposed to taking them out of balance, that struck a chord."
When the instructor explained that organic water gardens could be created on a very small scale, Simon experienced an "ah-ha" moment. For the first time in years she could envision a different sort of career. In the summer of 1999, Simon left MGM.
Simon started Poetic Plantings with capital borrowed from relatives. She created self-contained water gardens in ceramic pots and eventually designed and built small fountains. Although Simon enjoyed her work, the business lost money. Around 2001, small fountains were available at any discount store, and she had difficulty convincing customers to pay much higher prices for her creations.
Simon had the good fortune to meet a landscape designer who was looking for an assistant. "He took me on as an apprentice, and I started learning about basic design and graphic skills," she says. "It gave me big steps to be able to move forward." In late 2002, Simon decided to strike out on her own, transforming Poetic Plantings into a landscape design company.
Her first landscaping job came through a friend who knew someone with a garden. "It was a postage-stamp-sized garden," she says, "and I winged it." Once she completed the plantings, Simon was amazed at how good the garden looked. She knew she had the skills to make her company grow.
In April 2003, Simon was invited to be a guest designer on an episode of Home & Garden Television's "Ground Rules." She accepted the challenge of designing two gardens, but was nervous.
"And then we did the shoot," she says, "and all that acting experience paid off. I was so comfortable in front of the camera." Simon was invited to tape another episode.
One of her favorite designs is a landscape for Prototypes, a women's shelter in Pomona, Calif. "I'm proud of the garden because it's sustainable," she explains, "and because it benefits a population that is in deep need of healing."
This idea — that gardens and landscapes can inspire and heal — is important to Simon. She would like to begin designing spaces in urban neighborhoods.
For now, Simon spends her time designing for clients, building business relationships and working on a landscaping degree at UCLA.
On the Net: www.poeticplantings.com.
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