Designing The Lush Dry Garden

Cricket Riley is the co-owner of Lush Dry Gardens (www.lushdrygardens.com), a landscape design firm  specializing in low-water garden design. She worked at The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek from 2017 to 2025. There she held a variety of positions, including Director of the Design Services department, which she created in 2019. She was also the primary instructor for RBG’s Dry Garden Design Certificate Program, which she co-created with Alice Kitajima in 2020.

Alice Kitajima’s profound connection to gardens and landscape design started at an early age, thanks to the influence of her father, who immigrated to Los Angeles to install Japanese-style gardens. She has worked at various botanical gardens and arboreta around the United States after finishing her forestry and music studies at University of California, Berkeley. As the Program Director at the Ruth Bancroft Garden, overseeing the education department, her greatest passion was connecting and deepening people’s connections with plants. 

Kier Holmes is a Bay Area native who, when not digging in her own laboratory-like garden, designing thoughtful gardens for clients, or lecturing on various gardening topics, is a contributing writer and content creator for Gardenista and Sonoma Magazine. Kier has also contributed to numerous other publications including Martha Stewart, Sunset, Better Homes & Gardens, National Geographic Kids, Edible Marin & Wine Country, and Marin Magazine, plus she is the author of The Garden Refresh: How to Give Your Yard Big Impact on a Small Budget.