Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Teddy Rutberg. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Teddy, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?
My optimism is a daily decision to take the more beautiful path.
I have spent exorbitant amounts of time sitting in a pessimistic view of the world, and I’ve seen first hand that it doesn’t help to make things better. Growing up in the 2000’s I learned about environmental destruction through various sources such as An Inconvenient Truth (2006), and I witnessed raging consumerism and car culture. I understood the implications of the harmful impact we are making on the planet from an early age, and felt powerless to do anything about it. I developed a lot of climate anxiety and fear about the future. It was easy to feel powerless and paralyzed, watching the slow-motion destruction of life on this planet. Over time, it took a real toll on my mental and emotional health. I eventually realized I needed to find a different way to think, a way to feel hopeful and empowered to create the future I wanted to see instead of the one I could see unfolding.
I started spending time searching out an alternative lens — one that I found presented by thousands of small organizations, YouTubers, and TED talk presenters focused on creating positive change, healing our culture and our ecosystem, and contributing to beauty in the world. Engaging with the content produced by these hopeful visionaries helped me channel my spirit towards something more positive and hopeful. Simultaneously, I found that the richest and most beautiful experiences I was having were all spent in nature and connecting with the earth. Nature camps, hiking in the PNW forests, and growing potatoes in my small urban backyard gave me a sense of wonder and hope that I knew could spread healing for the planet and society. I began researching topics such as Agroecology, Permaculture, and Ecological Restoration — taking every spare moment I could to fill my mind with these powerfully hopeful practices.
My deepest joy comes from witnessing and interacting with plants & ecosystems. Watching seeds sprout, soil grow richer, and insects feed on flowers that I’ve planted feels like an inherently optimistic activity. Every season, I choose to keep engaging with nature through my garden, and exploring the Pacific Northwest’s abundant landscapes. Taking a clump of raspberry brambles from a neighbor’s yard and nestling them in the dirt of my own garden sends a message, to myself and those around me — “I believe the sun will shine this summer. It will be warm, bees will visit these flowers, and I will eat berries.” This task is a prayer of optimism and trust in nature’s cycles and the sweetness of collaborating with plants and wildlife. I choose to plant the vines, I choose to trust the sun & rain, I choose to eat the berries each summer — and I believe that the world, not just myself, is better for it.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My profession began as a hobby when I was a teenager. By the time I was 16 I’d been learning about gardening, sustainable agriculture, and ecology for a number of years already. I’d participated in community gardens, taken horticulture classes in high school, and spent much of my spare time learning about topics of nature and plants online. The day I realized that the big tree next to my parent’s home was actually an invasive English Holly tree, I asked my folks to call an arborist to come cut it down. I was going to plant a garden.
Seven years later I’d graduated from The Evergreen State College, had worked with a landscape design/build company (Cascadecopia, LLC in Olympia, WA), and the trees I’d planted as a teenager were getting taller than me. Each year I’d added more plants to the garden outside my parent’s home, and added more skills to my repertoire. What began as a slow dribble of working for myself — tending a neighbor’s yard here, redesigning a family friend’s garden there — began to look more and more like my best route forward as I started considering my career path more seriously. I had a 25-year-old, $500 truck that ran on propane, a set of hand tools, and a $30/month design program at my disposal, and I was ready for business.
The last three years have been a steady progression day-by-day of learning how to build a company, all in the pursuit of doing as much as I can to restore Seattle’s urban ecosystem & help our community reconnect to nature. Rutheo Designs LLC began with just me — a schmuck in a truck — and has grown into a team of 8 dedicated individuals, working together for a ‘Healthy Planet and a Happy You’. We prioritize native plants, sustainable practices, and local or reclaimed materials in our gardens. Our services are all-organic, and our maintenance equipment is all-electric. We show our clients which plants are edible and educate them about the historical importance of native crops such as camas, wild strawberry, and nodding onion. We are doing our best to soften the human/nature interface in the city by welcoming wild plants into landscapes, and integrating outdoor living spaces with plantings that are as appealing to wildlife as they are to our customers.
My next big challenge is figuring out how to scale and grow our company while maintaining our heart, vision, ethos, and values. If we want to restore a healthy forest canopy and ecosystem across our wonderful city, it is going to take many dedicated teams of landscape designers and builders, but also a shifting ethic and perspective amongst ourselves and our neighbors — becoming more open to seeing our homes and lives as taking place within the larger ecology of the city, rather than creating scraps of habitat around our lives and homes. Creating symbiotic educational opportunities for our clients and employment opportunities for dedicated individuals who want to care for the planet is one of my most meaningful goals.
Take a look at where we are today, and keep an eye out for what comes next: www.rutheodesigns.com
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Curiosity, collaboration, and humility.
Curiosity to keep looking for something new, or something old that still works.
Collaboration lets us be part of something bigger than ourselves, and go further than we could alone.
Humility helps us to never stop growing. The willingness to accept that we aren’t all we could be invites progress.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
The willingness to ask for help & try something new has been critical, every step of the way. Whether it’s facing a problem in my personal life, or running into a wall in the business, acknowledging that somebody else has faced the same issue before & overcome it has saved me numerous times. Often we don’t have to figure out a problem for ourselves if we are able to seek out the right mentor or coach who has already done it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.rutheodesigns.com
- Instagram: @rutheodesigns
Image Credits
Sage Mailman
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
