How it started
In 2009, Dale and Marta Holt bought twelve overgrown acres outside Concrete with a vague plan to grow Christmas trees. The Christmas tree plan didn't survive its first winter — the soil and slope were wrong for it — but the cedar seedlings they'd planted as a windbreak did just fine, and kept doing fine, and that told them something.
They shifted the whole operation toward what the land actually wanted to grow: western red cedar, native understory plants, and eventually vegetables in the flatter, sunnier corner near the creek. What began as a stubborn hobby slowly turned into a nursery with actual customers.
How the consulting side happened
Around 2014, a neighbor asked Dale to look at a soggy backyard corner she'd given up on. He came back a week later with a sketch, a drainage plan, and a short list of plants that wouldn't drown. It worked, she told two friends, and within a year "can you just come look at it" had become a regular Tuesday occurrence.
Now garden plot consulting is roughly half of what Cedar Plot does — walking properties, drawing layouts, and giving people the unromantic truth about their soil before they spend money on the wrong plants.
What we believe
Native first, ornamental second
Plants that evolved for this exact rainfall and this exact clay tend to outlast the ones that didn't, no matter how nice the catalog photo looks.
Slow is a feature
A cedar takes decades to mature. A garden plot takes a couple of seasons to find its rhythm. We plan for both, instead of promising instant results.
Tell people the truth
If your site won't support what you're picturing, we'll say so before you dig — and offer three things that will actually work there instead.
Small on purpose
We've stayed a two-family operation with a handful of seasonal helpers because we'd rather know every plot we've touched than grow past that.
Who you'll actually talk to
Dale Holt — Nursery & Soil
Dale handles the cedar stock, soil consulting, and most site visits. He spent a decade in forestry before starting the nursery and still can't walk past a compacted trail without wincing.
Marta Holt — Design & Plots
Marta draws the plot layouts and manages the vegetable and native-shrub side of the nursery. She keeps a notebook of every plot we've designed, going back to that first soggy backyard.