Biography of a Garden Genius - Steven Chase

When I was ten years old I grew Zinnias and Sun Flowers that reached over six feet tall one summer. I promised myself at that time that whatever I do in life for work I had to be around flowers. So I rode my bicycle over to Tostoe's Garden Center and got a job starting annuals in trays. Tostoe's also carried indoor plants and seasonal surprises such as Hydrangeas and Easter Lilies, etc. At that time I used whatever was available at home, which included a Florida Holly hedge that was sufficient as a border but attracted flocks of marvelous scarlet Cardinals in winter.

In my early teen years I would hitch hike up to McArthur State Park with my hand snips on Friday afternoon and stay till Sunday afternoon trimming the pathways and eating off the land. I found water in the seagrape leaves and berries after fresh rain. How much I desired to know all the plants at that time so I could call them by name. Now, as a member of the Florida Native Plant Society I continually learn more about these native plants.

I have long enjoyed spending time with people of similar interests. We get together each month and maintain the small Native Plant Society Garden at Mounts Botanical Gardens on Military Trail. My love for flowers has never diminished. I enrolled in the South Florida School of Floral Design and went to work at Buning the Florist. Walter Metz was my instructor and he was a tough task master at the school and Marianne Stewart was a go-getter of a boss at Buning in the Royal Poinciana Plaza in Palm Beach. One of the joys of that employment was decorating the Breakers Hotel for the Heart Fund Ball with arrangements that were eighteen feet tall. Frank Cremeans took charge of that, who was also a Master in Ikebana floral arrangements.

Marianne also flew us over to Paradise Island in the Bahamas to decorate the Holiday Inn there.  By the age of nineteen I wanted to see the big city so I moved to Miami and worked for Beaux Jarden Landscape. This introduced me to the lifestyle of the rich and famous group who loved their gardens and demanded the best. We also refurbished areas in and around the Viscaya home and gardens as well as Fairchild Garden properties such as the Maze, the Rose Garden and the Asian Gardens.

In 1971 John Riordan was the Landscape Architect to do business with if you wanted your landscape dreams to come true. Wanting to get out of the sun, I got involved in Interiorscapes. Fran Murphy gave me my big break by allowing me to take on her home, and the entire Design Center Studio on Clematis, which had been the old Burdines building.

I eventually missed the flowers too much so I got a great job at the West Palm Beach Country Club which gave me twelve thousand acres of raw material to play with. Gene Calloway the manager, loved flowers as much as I do. The joy of again designing and maintaining flowerbeds of annuals that were a hundred feet in diameter kept me busy but very satisfied. The proshop was adorned with a topiary of a golfer teeing off with a wood iron.

These are some of my fondest memories in the garden locally, but of course whereever I am, as long as I'm in a garden it's my favorite place.

My work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Interiorscape Magazine as well as Florida Gardens Magazine.

Some of my formal training:

South Florida School of Floral Design - 1971 Lifetime Career Schools; Modern landscaping - 1985 The University of Florida; Landscape and Turf Management - 1990 Palm Beach State College; Turf Grass Sciences Disney Institute; Garden Sciences - 1999 The Robinson Media Group; Public Speaking 2004