A Lifelong Love of Gardens

Hello! My name is Zach Stanley and I am the owner and operator of Ink and Brush Fine Tree Pruning. I believe aesthetic pruning is a practice that is frequently overlooked in western gardening but has the power to transform spaces for the better. Such pruning can be done to further bring out the beauty of a plant, associate it better with the space around it, improve its health, and improve the conditions for the other plants that live around it.

From my experience western gardens most frequently highlight flowers.. but often overlook how the trees and shrubs around the flowers can be used to greatly improve the flowering space or how they can further become objects of beauty themselves.

In design I'm interested in applying aesthetic ideals in western and eastern painting traditions to gardening, concentrating on the Chinese painting tradition and western sacred geometry. 

I hope to bring together what I've learned from growing up and studying western garden tradition and working within eastern garden tradition to make use of both of their strengths.

Although my focus for you is on pruning trees and shrubs, I am also available for all aspects of garden maintenance, as well as design and installation of gardens and garden features.

I am the third generation in my family to work in ornamental horticulture, beginning myself at my family's greenhouse and nursery business, Stanley's Greenhouse in Knoxville, TN. Now I have worked professionally in the industry for over 20 years and earned my B.S. in Ornamental Horticulture, M.S. in Plant Biology, and have become the first to complete an individual training program in Suzhou, China's most revered site of gardens.

I currently work as the Gardener in Residence at the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden in Vancouver BC.

Formerly I worked as the Head Gardener in Portland's Lan Su Chinese Garden, at Portland's Japanese Garden, and the Pacific Bonsai Museum near Seattle, WA.