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My bio:

Few garden designers have Frank’s breadth of education or experience: he studied horticulture under the late JC Raulston, namesake of NCSU’s arboretum and learned design from  Tracy Traer, Denis Wood and Will Hooker, who has had several installations at the NC Museum of Art. Frank is also a stonemason, carpenter and sculptor; he learned stonemasonry from the late Arch Haithcock of Blue Ridge Stone, learned carpentry from Green builder Mark Marcoplos and apprenticed with Raleigh’s first organic landscaper, Bob Mulder.

In his youth Frank farmed organic vegetables in Granville County, picked oranges in Spain and worked as an IPM scout for tomato farmers in SC. He restricts his garden design/plant/build business, called Cottage Garden Landscaping, to what he calls the “bungalow neighborhoods” of inner city Durham and yet manages to stay booked up as much as 6 months in advance. He uses his knowledge to create innovative and beautiful gardens that don’t need babying. Frank has written about gardening for since 1990 in the N&O, Herald-Sun, Independent Weekly, Carolina Gardener, Backyard Poultry, Horticulture and many other magazines. He gardens with his wife, Chris Crochetiere, at Bayleaf Cottage, their home in Durham.