Zack Pitchford

As a born and raised Floridian spending so much of my younger years outdoors, I have always had a keen interest and appreciation for nature. Growing up, our family spent summers boating to the keys or spending time at the beach and cooler months camping and hiking. As a millennial in the beginning of the technological boom, my parents kept the house void of much technology other than a single television in the family room. With little to do inside, my siblings and I grew up playing outside, trekking through the local swamps and woods that connected neighborhoods, biking, running, and climbing trees. This helped engrave an ambition to be outside and stay connected to nature, something I would later understand.

Aside from school, my high school years were filled with much of the same activities but also included my first job, at a former retail nursery called Beckett Lake Nursery. After the nursery shut down due to the tanking economy, I found myself at Wilcox Nursery, and was introduced to the growing native plant community.

With the opportunities to work with the landscape crews integrating plans, and time in the nursery working with customers to find the perfect plant, my desire to work in the landscape was born.

I left the nursery and set out to the University of Florida where I secured training and a degree in Landscape and Nursery Management, with an emphasis on design that also secured a minor in Landscape Architecture, in 2012.

I found my way back to Wilcox Nursery where I could utilize this new training in the landscape industry. But beyond just using these new skills, I believed in the work Wilcox Nursery is doing to promote the use of native plants in the landscape. In a time where mass development and crowded populations dominate so many ecologically important areas, the need for native vegetation and habitat might just help to offset the negative effects that the latter causes.

I took a brief hiatus to travel off and on from 2014-2018, exploring areas of the Caribbean and later eastern and southern Texas. I never stopped designing and studying the landscapes I found myself in. In the Caribbean I led hikes through the mountains to show natural watersheds and views of the island. I also led paddleboard tours where the coastal areas could be explored and appreciated.

In Texas, I worked on a team trekking through untouched forest documenting trees, caves, and wildlife for government analysis. I was also responsible for leading the maintenance and development of the native gardens at Stephen F. Austin University. But my love for the coast and Florida brought me back to the Wilcox Nursery family.