Purple Martin
Wendi Martin is a Holistic Horticulturist, Master Naturalist, Wife, and Mother. She is the Owner & CEO at her company Purple Martin Coaching LLC.
What’s in the Name? Well her last name of course, favorite color, and her community bird spirit!
Wendi spends time volunteering and participating in green industry continuing education programming with the Landscape & Nursery Association of Greater St. Louis (LNAGSL), Wild Ones Natural Landscapers of St. Charles Area, and Great Rivers Pollinator Habitat Partnership(GRPHP). She is also a professional member of the Grow Native! Program run by the Missouri Prairie Foundation.
Wendi’s Story
Wendi’s interest in the plant world began with a quest to learn to grow homegrown veggies. This journey began as an opportunity to learn new skills for herself and family with her youngest child was then entering preschool, and thus an inquiry to the horticulture department at St. Louis Community College(STLCC) was made.
In that call to STLCC she was told that at that time in 2013, they were not offering education on edibles but was assured she’d learn to grow and understand plants, which sounded interesting enough, so she ultimately decided to enroll into the program and begin her horticulture career.
She very soon discovered a working veggie farm tabling at a local health fair and was invited to enroll into an apprenticeship program at Earthdance Farms, in Ferguson, MO, where she indeed gained the hands-on veggie growing experience she sought working on a fully functioning vegetable farm using organic practices, which she spent her first summer break from college doing.
During her time at the vegetable farm a radical moment happened for her! Earthdance held a hands-on educational workshop building a native plant rain garden, thus educating her on stormwater management and the connection of native plants to pollinators and how these pollinators would then benefit the food crops we were growing on the farm. This experience was a big aha moment! Native plants was her calling!
Before finishing up the horticulture program at STLCC, she would complete the Master Naturalist program at the college and move into and complete an Internship with Litzsinger Road Ecology Center(LREC), managed by Missouri Botanical Garden.
It was there at LREC she was able to deep dive into the workings of our native plant communities. She worked as a natural land steward and gained skills growing native plants from seed, skills in native plant identification, monitoring the land, managing invasive plants, and all facets of restoring prairie & woodlands.
A Community Bird
Wendi’s journey has taken her through the work as a Horticulturist for municipal parks and recreation departments, for private estates, a wholesale growing supply company, and a couple plant grower, wholesale & retail departments inside the green industry.
Wendi’s skills allow her work to flow in her private work as she migrates our region helping residential community members, land owners, and non-profits to foster resilient and functional natural landscapes.
She shows up to meet clients where they are by listening and then delivers with an aim to foster our natural world to come back home & into our communities!