Plants & Ponds Our Passions
Michael & Lynn ... Our Business, Our Life
We love living in Canada's ultimate garden paradise: Vancouver Island!
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After years of living in Vancouver, we decided to transplant ourselves to Vancouver Island and put our roots down in the beautiful Cowichan Valley where we could fulfill our dream of growing a landscaping services business and share our passion for plants & ponds while cultivating a close connection to nature with our neighbours in and around the Cowichan Valley.
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We really love what we do and dig that we get to help others really love their gardens and ponds on Canada’s most beautiful island.
Our commitment: To work to create beautiful, healthy gardens & ponds from Cobble Hill to Nanaimo.
Our vision: Make Into the Garden Cowichan Valley’s most loved, most trusted, owner-operated and detail-oriented landscape and pond services company.
We create & maintain a close connection to nature through color, texture and form; we strive to help our customers really love their yards/gardens/ponds.
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We are rooted in:
Integrity Honesty Trust
Pride Excellence Teamwork
Collaboration Efficiency Safety
Michael, Owner & Operator
Red Seal Endorsed Landscape Horticulturist
Hi, I'm Michael!
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My love for plants began early, watching in awe as my mother’s dahlias grew from tiny tubers into towering shrubs bursting with color. As a teenager in suburban Montreal, I planted my first radishes, carrots, and lettuce—an experience that sparked a lifelong passion for growing things.
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For 17 seasons, I worked in the silviculture industry, planting over a million trees across Canada. Scrambling through the bush, searching for the perfect spot for each seedling, and working in awe-inspiring landscapes cemented my love for plants, the outdoors, and hard, rewarding work.
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Landscaping became the natural next step. By 2009, I transitioned into the industry, working my way from gardener to field supervisor while gaining hands-on experience with the plants that thrive in the Pacific Coast climate. Wanting to deepen my expertise, I enrolled in the four-year Canadian Red Seal Landscape Horticulturist program, completing my apprenticeship and earning my certification in 2016.
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My wife, Lynn, and I spent nearly a decade in Vancouver, turning our small balcony into a lush garden before making the move to Ladysmith. In 2019, we founded Into the Garden Landscaping Services, where I now share my expertise and enthusiasm with the Cowichan Valley community—helping clients Really Love Their Yard.
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Our CFO
(Chief of Feline Operations)
Really Love Your Pond!
"The Pond Pixie"
Spreading the magic of beautifying ponds in the Cowichan Valley one pond at a time....
Lynn, "The Pond Pixie"
Hi, I'm Lynn!
I have always had an affinity for water, plants and fish.
Goldfish had my attention from a very young age. So much so that "goldfish" was one of the first words after mom & dad.
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I grew up in Hawaii and California surrounded by the magic of all of the beautiful flora and fauna. Nature captured my imagination early on and cultivated my interest in what germinated into a lifelong passion: the creation of beautiful, colorful and unique gardens inspired by nature.​
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​As The Pond Pixie of Into the Garden, I have the pleasure of spreading the magic of beautifying ponds one pond at time in the Cowichan Valley.
I am Into the Pond and Into the Garden!
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Really Love Your Pond
Our Mission
We are passionate about plants and ponds and are immersed in maintaining and creating beautiful, healthy gardens and ponds throughout the Cowichan Valley.
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Our services are provided using up-to-date, sustainable horticultural and pond care principles.
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We create and maintain a close connection to nature through color, texture, and form and strive to help our customers really love their yards, gardens, and ponds.
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Our relationships with clients, employees, and community partners are founded on integrity, excellence, and trust.
Cowichan takes its name from “Quw’utsun,” the name given to the valley by its original inhabitants, the Quw’utsun people. It is rooted in the Hul’q’umi’num word “shquw’utsun” which directly translated means “to warm one’s back in the sun,” and is why our valley is, and always has been known as The Warm Land."- Tourism Cowichan