Our Story
Rooted in place.
Growing people.
Land Stewards of NC was founded on two convictions: that every piece of land has a spirit worth listening to, and that every person deserves a loving chance to grow.
The Founder
Wendi Gale — Designer & Mentor
"A garden is never just a garden. It's a record of who lived here, what they loved, and how the land responded."
Wendi has been tending land and nurturing people for over forty years. What began as a personal calling — an almost inexplicable love for plants and soil — grew into Artistry in Plants, one of Durham's most beloved landscape studios, and is now Land Stewards of NC.
She brings a breadth of expertise to every site — horticulture and botany, site analysis and environmental science, spatial design and art, and social work and garden therapy — and weaves it together with patience and a sincere tenderness for the character of each piece of land.
Wendi sees each project as a canvas on which to create living art: not a fixed object to be delivered, but an organism that seeds, shifts, and surprises across every season. Where others see a difficult slope or a shadowy corner, she sees the garden room that wants to be there.
Teaching the Land
Knowledge passed hand to hand
Wendi has always believed the most generous thing she can do is give her knowledge away — to customers, to young people, to anyone willing to come outside and learn to listen, see, feel, smell, touch, and imagine.
That impulse to teach became the heart of Second Growth: a mentorship pathway that offers young people a real craft, a fair income, and a community of people who genuinely believe in them.
Our Social Mission
Second Growth
In forestry, "second growth" describes the tender new forest that rises after disturbance — young trees pushing up through the clearcut, quietly full of life and possibility. It felt like the right name for what we do.
A career path through the craft of the land
Land Stewards of NC is a social enterprise. We intentionally hire and mentor local people who have been touched by the justice system — those navigating reentry, rebuilding confidence, and searching for work that connects them to something profoundly meaningful.
What we offer isn't a job program. It's an apprenticeship in a real craft: horticulture, ecological design, organic land care, and the slow art of listening to a living system.
Auntais Faulkner
"At first, it was just another job, but I received so much more than a paycheck. I was trusted and depended on. Wendi saw something in me that I didn't yet see in myself. With her support, I transitioned to a structured life, managing a full-time school schedule and a full-time job. She taught me to have faith in myself, encouraging me to pursue my dreams and showing me a side of life I had never seen before."
"When you put your hands in the soil and help something grow, something always grows in you, too." — Wendi Gale
Honest Work
The crew at work
Work With Us
Great gardens grow great things
Consultations are free, and they begin with listening. Tell us your dream, your concerns, your budget — and together we'll discover what your homestead is longing to become.