When Rosmarie Lohnes says her staff is “out working in the field,” chances are she means it literally. Based in Bridgewater, N.S., Lohnes is the founder of Helping Nature Heal, an award-winning sustainable-landscaping company specializing in shoreline restoration and ecosystem design.
What does all that mean? In its simplest terms, it means she and her employees spend a lot of time outdoors, in the elements, rebuilding eroded shorelines and creating sustainable ecosystems filled with native species of plants, flowers and ground cover.
Founded in 2001, Helping Nature Heal (HNH) has grown from being a sole proprietorship to employing a dozen staff. Lohnes initially worked solo, doing organic gardening and landscaping – but demand for her services, specifically those related to shoreline restoration, quickly grew and she knew she needed to expand.
“A lot of our clients were coastal homeowners, and they started seeing erosion happening more consistently than they had in the past,” Lohnes says. “Here I was, by myself, trying to solve all these challenges, and obviously needing to hire staff because I was working too many hours per day.”
