Molly Finch, local resident and owner of Goldfinch Garden Design — a new business geared towards ecologically minded and sustainable land management — is pictured here in August of last year, eradicating honeysuckle overgrowth at a forest restoration site off Polecat Road. (Submitted photo)
Local business aims for sustainable garden design
- Published: January 10, 2025
By El Mele
Though “design” is often considered in the aesthetic sense, local resident Molly Finch has a broader perspective on the term. That perspective is shaped by her new business, Goldfinch Garden Design.
As Finch told the News in a recent interview, she established Goldfinch Garden Design with an eye toward not only creating beautiful spaces, but also creating meaningful change through sustainable ecological practices.
“When I design a garden, I don’t just think about how a space will look — I think about how it will function ecologically, how it will support pollinators, birds and soil health, how it will conserve resources over time, how it will make the people using the space feel more connected to nature, and how the structure of my business itself will support a sustainable local economy,” Finch told the News.
The term “ecological design,” she added, is intended to highlight the way her work benefits local wildlife and focuses on sustainability.
Finch uses native plants — those that were not introduced artificially into an ecosystem, but occur naturally — in her everyday work.
Where non-native plants can wreak havoc on an ecosystem, growing unchecked in the absence of their natural predators and diverting resources from native flora and fauna, native plants are key to local ecosystems. Having evolved to tolerate regional weather, native plants are often resilient to weather extremes and require fewer resources to maintain. They also help encourage biodiversity as sources of food and habitat for local fauna.
“[Native plants] have co-evolved with local pollinators and wildlife, providing the exact resources those species need to support their entire life cycles — whether it’s nectar for bees, host plants for caterpillars, or shelter and seeds for birds and small mammals,” Finch said.
Native plants are also sustainable compared to lawns, which are mostly seeded with non-native grasses. Though some grass names may lead one to believe they’re native plants, American grasses are sourced from other continents; Kentucky bluegrass, for example, was brought over from Europe by the first North American colonizers, to feed their livestock.
Lawns cover over 40 million acres in the U.S., consuming large amounts of water, chemicals and fossil fuels and discouraging biodiversity. One result of decreased biodiversity has been a decline in pollinators, such as bees and butterflies — a decline that has wide-ranging consequences.
“Without pollinators, entire ecosystems unravel — along with human food systems,” Finch said, adding that “75% of flowering plants and 30% of food crops depend on pollination.”
The urgent need to shore up ecosystems, Finch said, is one of the reasons she was moved to pursue ecological design. Though she noted it can be “daunting” to combat climate change and declining biodiversity, she said she believes many can begin in their own yards.
“Planting native plants is a direct and tangible thing that we can do, and it absolutely does make a powerful difference,” she said.
Finch said her passion for ecological design is fueled by a lifetime of loving nature and gardening, precipitated by her parents, Laurel Finch and David Finch — “Gardening is totally in my blood,” she said.
When Molly Finch’s parents moved to Yellow Springs prior to her birth, she said, they lived in a one-room apartment with a monthly grocery budget of $50. Their garden plot on State Route 343, which they biked to every day, was how they survived.
“In fact, when they brought me home from the hospital, they stopped at the garden before they even went back home, and set me down in the dirt while they checked on all their plants,” Finch said. “So it’s probably their fault that’s where I feel most at home.”
Finch’s love of nature was further fostered by her employment from 2012 to 2015 at the Glen Helen Outdoor Education Center, where she worked as both an intern and a lead naturalist. She then attended College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, where her studies included botany, ecology, natural history, wildlife conservation, ethical business practices, fine arts and design. She earned a degree in human ecology — the study of how humans and nature interact — in 2019. Her path of study, she said, helped her lay the groundwork for the interdisciplinary work she does now.
Finch returned to Yellow Springs in 2021 and began managing her family’s property, which includes perennial fruit-producing trees and shrubs; a few native plant and pollinator gardens, which she’s been expanding; and a large annual vegetable patch, where she grows “pretty much everything.”
Having joyfully gardened through multiple seasons in the village — she said gardening is her “happy place” — Finch said her passion bloomed from a personal practice into a business idea.
“I didn’t ever want to stop digging in the dirt. That’s when it clicked: I could combine my degree in human ecology, my love for gardening and being outside, my skills in art and design and my passion for conservation into a career that aligned with my values,” she said. “That’s how Goldfinch Garden Design was born.”
In May of 2023, Finch began seeing clients, and went on to earn a Permaculture Design Certification from the Cincinnati Permaculture Institute at Antioch College. With Goldfinch Design registered as an LLC as of March 2024, Finch’s client base has grown steadily in and around the village, which she said has been an “ideal launchpad” for her business, based on Yellow Springs’ professed values of “sustainability, inclusivity, creativity and environmental stewardship.”
In keeping with those values, Finch said she believes that the “future of our planet depends on how landowners use their properties.” However, she said she’s “troubled” by the fact that incorporating native plants into home landscaping is largely inaccessible to those who don’t, or are unable to, own their own homes.
“Even if younger, [Black, Indigenous or people of color, or BIPOC], or lower-income folks beat the odds and manage to afford a home, a lack of expendable resources or time to do endless research often makes it harder to participate in the ecological landscaping movement,” Finch said.
For that reason, Finch offers one free consultation each month to those who live within 25 miles of Yellow Springs, identify as BIPOC, are under 40 or who have household incomes under $60,000 per year. She encouraged those within those parameters who have interest in learning more about incorporating biodiversity into their own properties to reach out to be added to her free consultation waitlist.
“As my business grows, I’ll be looking for more ways to make it more accessible, and am open to input,” she said. “Environmental work has to be inclusive if we want it to succeed.”
Finch also strives to reflect her values, including sustainability, in how she runs her business. She sources plants from local nonprofit Heartbeat Gardens whenever she can, and otherwise has plants shipped from other small, independent plant nurseries in the tri-state area. She also employs local residents, aiming to “pay them equitably and ensure they feel supported,” she said.
Now that Finch’s team is in the off-season, they take on other sustainable landscaping projects with clients, including routine property maintenance, invasive removal and stone work. This winter, they’re working on clearing invasive honeysuckle and euonymus and preparing designs for spring.
Finch said she loves that her work through Goldfinch Garden Design combines her passions and requires her to use her “whole brain and body” for the variety of tasks she undertakes, whether it be “running a chainsaw, driving a tractor, shoveling mulch, fitting stones together for a path, identifying plants, drafting designs, writing, bookkeeping or collaborating with my crew,” she said.
But her favorite aspect of the job, she said, is watching the difference she makes in her clients’ gardens and lives.
“It feels amazing to see someone light up as they notice pollinators returning, discover a monarch caterpillar on their milkweed, or start to appreciate the seasonal changes in their garden,” Finch said. “Helping people form a deeper connection with the land and ecosystems around them is what makes this work so delightful!”
More information on Goldfinch Garden Design can be found at http://www.goldfinchgardendesign.com.
*The author is a student at Antioch College and a freelance reporter for the News.
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