leslie’s passion for horticulture began when she was a little girl. trees, plants, and flowers have always been close to her heart, ever since getting lost in her mums vegetable garden. to this day her favorite flower is the zinnia, which grew all over her garden. she soon found that nature held within it a certain brilliance of structure, architecture, and design and made the decision to attend pratt institute to study design, history, and theory.
following her studies she worked for an architect in boston, where she was first introduced to interior plant foliage. she acquired a job servicing interior plants in office buildings around the boston area, and spent her free time on her bicycle. while working as an interior foliage technician, she soon found that she loved to work with her hands. this, coupled with her other passion for bicycles, led her build custom bikes from scratch. although she thinks about this time in her life with great pride, she realized that she wanted to immerse herself back into the world of horticulture.
she moved back to nyc and began working/studying at the school of professional horticulture at the new york botanical garden. there she studied horticulture and worked side by side with expert gardeners, learning the practical use, and design techniques of exterior gardening. during her time at nybg she had a teacher, named jeff mendoza, who she fell love with, and soon thereafter, began working with him to fulfill a required internship. upon graduation, jeff hired her to lead his maintenance crew for his owned design/build firm, j. mendoza gardens.
leslie began working for blondie’s treehouse, inc. after a merger with j. mendoza gardens in 2011. during her time with blondie’s she has overseen expansive exterior gardens, been an integral part in plant design concept, and worked alongside the exterior sales team and operations department in order to install and maintain healthy and beautiful gardens around the nyc area.
