Metro Blooms’ design team has become more artistic. When new member Jennifer Moeller is not out in the field working or in the office planning, she just might be drawing or painting.

The aquarium mural in the lobby of the pediatric floor at a local hospital is her work, as are the animal murals in patient rooms.  Art is one of Moeller’s passions. She has been drawing since childhood, and has memories of making her younger sister sit still as a model when she was only eight.

Luckily for Metro Blooms, Moeller loves being out in nature too. Growing up, she spent a lot of time outdoors. She credits her mother for this. When the kids were bored, her mother gave them two options: chores or going outside.

Eventually Moeller joined the landscape architecture program at the University of Minnesota. She thought it would be a good way to combine her love of art and design, a desire to spend time outdoors and an interest in math. She first learned about Metro Blooms when a Metro Blooms designer came to talk to one of her classes about raingardens.

Moeller’s first job after graduating from college was in designing for accessibility at Metropolitan State University. The work she was involved in ranged from recommending hardscape materials for specific needs to checking appropriate crossing times at intersections. This experience informed her graduate work later on at UMN, where some of her projects focused on making spaces more accessible. She received her master’s degree in landscape architecture in May.

Moeller has spent much of her first few weeks at Metro Blooms shadowing other designers on consults and raingarden installations. She likes the variety of the position, which includes lots of outdoor time and lots of design work.

Moeller approaches landscape design artfully. “I will sketch ideas out and then put water color to them, and do a little bit of painting mixture,” she says. “And then I’ll scan them in and render those into final drawings for landscape architecture designs.”

– Aleli Balagtas, Metro Blooms Reporter, aleli@metroblooms.org