Design Changemakers: Allison Messner Is Making Landscape Design More Accessible
Apartment Therapy’s Changemakers Class of 2022 is made up of 15 of the most talented and dynamic people (or duos or trios) working in the design world. This year’s honorees are all about connecting, collaborating, and disrupting the industry to steer the collective design conversation towards innovation and a better future. See the rest of the list here.
Who: Allison Messner, founder of Yardzen
Where to follow her: Instagram at @yardzen
When the 2017 Tubbs Fire in Northern California left Allison Messner’s property a smoldering, fire-ravaged mess, Messner felt there was a lot to be thankful for: Her family — including her husband Adam and their two kids — had escaped unharmed, and by some miracle, their 100-year-old heritage farmhouse survived as well. “But our land was literally scorched earth,” says Messner. She recognized an opportunity in the disaster when an initial bid from a landscape architect rang in at $40,000 plus four months’ worth of planning and plotting. Messner thought there must be a faster, cheaper solution.
“What we really wanted was a talented person’s vision of what our yard could be — a plan that we could install ourselves with the help of a contractor,” says Messner, who germinated this seed of an idea into Yardzen, an online landscape-design service. Launched in mid-2018, Yardzen pairs its customers with a designer who is familiar with their local climate; prices range from $649 for a planting design to $2,395 for a full exterior and yard makeover. Then, contractors in Yardzen’s network oversee the fruition of the final CAD plans, complete with curated furniture and hardware recommendations from brand partners like Crate & Barrel and Rejuvenation.
A little more than three years later, Yardzen operates in all 50 states and their network of 250 landscape designers and architects have devised custom outdoor spaces for tens of thousands of clients, each beginning the process by submitting photos and details about their vision online. In 2021, Yardzen — which has raised $11 million in venture funding to date — expanded to include renovating house exteriors, and al fresco party planning is on the horizon.
Messner’s own experience restoring her wildfire-stricken property made her determined to use her platform to educate Yardzen’s clients about the value of restoring habitats, one yard at a time. The company’s American Rewilding Project is an initiative that champions biodiversity by planting native, climate-adapted, and/or pollinator-friendly flora in each project, like sages (salvia), yarrow, and sedges. Says Messner, “As the most scalable landscape design firm in the United States, we have an opportunity to make a significant positive impact.”
Apartment Therapy: What legacy do you hope to leave?
Allison Messner: I am not a landscape designer or a landscape architect, so I’m carving out a new niche! My singular hope with Yardzen is that we can enable people to live better outside. If my legacy can help people create livable space outdoors and improve their quality of life, I’m thrilled.
AT: What’s your favorite project you worked on in 2021 so far?
AM: The exterior design services we launched in 2021. We are on the forefront of, what I believe is, an emerging design category. It’s impossible to decouple the outside of the home from the landscape around it, and so many of our clients were asking for help choosing an exterior paint color, rethinking exterior doors and windows, and generally reimagining their home’s exterior aesthetic. Expanding into exterior design from our starting point in landscape design was a natural evolution for Yardzen.
AT: What makes you feel successful?
AM: Success can mean many things to many people, but for me it’s about enabling access to excellent design. The best designs are energizing to clients and give them confidence to move forward and make their space more beautiful, functional, and sustainable. If we can inspire, we’ve succeeded.
AT: What makes you feel at home in your own space?
AM: Our outdoor space is such a big part of why I love and feel most rooted in my home. It’s an absolute must for me. It’s where we host and socialize, where I’m most comfortable and at peace.
AT: Is there someone in the design world you are admiring right now?
AM: Leslie Bennett of Pine House Edible Gardens has long been an inspiration. Leslie has a unique ability to make edible and native yards functional and beautiful. Her most recent venture, Black Sanctuary Gardens, inspires us with its mission to create “nourishing gardens in collaboration with Black women and their communities.”
AT: What three words would you use to describe where you see the design world going in 2022?
AM: Health-centered, technology-enabled, and rewilding-focused. “Health” because little is more top of mind these days than our own health, as well as the health of those around us. “Rewilding” because our desire to be close to nature has never been stronger. I see a strong desire to restore spaces to their natural wildness, or create a sense of organicness, leading to the rise of both biophilic design and outdoor design. “Technology-enabled” because so many aspects of design are moving online. The tooling available is just incredible, and even with the tech in a modern iPhone, a designer can check in on a space or gather spatial information without visiting on site.
Interview has been edited and condensed.