Timothy and Lindsay Watkins met at ECHO, a North Fort Myers nonprofit that provides resources for sustainable farming in impoverished communities across the world. He worked in the nursery. She worked in the seed bank.

“I kind of grew the trees and she grew the seeds, and we got together,” Tim says. “We met there and really started our family here in Southwest Florida.”

That includes four children — three teenagers and a 7-year-old — and a young company, Ecovision Landscapes.

“The whole idea behind Ecovision is [applying] those ideas, the techniques that I gained and that we learned at ECHO,” Tim says.

In doing so, they created an environmentally sustainable option for yards and gardens in Southwest Florida, minimizing the use of fertilizer and irrigation water by building landscapes for clients that make use of native shrubs, grasses and flowers. Sometimes that also includes fruit and vegetable crops, such as mangos, avocados, coffee, ginger, herbs and many other edibles suited for the subtropical environment. They are incorporated into gardens using agroforestry techniques — a method of farming in which crops and plants exist together in beneficial relationships. Tim earned a master’s degree in the method from University of Missouri’s online program while working at ECHO, which he did for 15 years in all.

The couple began Ecovision in 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time there was an uptick of interest in outdoor landscaping and growing food at home that has since leveled off, Watkins said. But if Ecovision’s ideas take root, landscaping designs that rely on elevated amounts of fertilizer and water to maintain a uniformly green blanket of grass could become a thing of the past.

Environmental problems in recent years have pushed some people in that direction. Rainwater runoff polluted by nitrogen, a fertilizer nutrient, has helped produce algal blooms mucking up Southwest Florida’s inland and coastal waters. Meanwhile, the area’s skyrocketing population in a time of drought has put a stronger spotlight on water as a valuable resource. Cape Coral city officials in May hiked prices for water used to irrigate lawns, in order to pay for a reservoir in Charlotte County that will help the Cape shore up its irrigation water supply.

Watkins said he’s not out to eliminate grass but reduce its presence in lawns and encourage the use of sustainable varietals. “Grass does serve a function, but a lot of the grasses used are thirsty, really hungry and they don’t do anything for the biodiversity that we live around. It is very costly in terms of health for the environment. A big part of our job is removing grass and bringing in the natives.”

He designs landscapes that range from all native ornamentals to 100% edibles and everywhere in between. The company has installed plant habitats on Sanibel Island and Fort Myers Beach, an edible sensory community garden for a church in Port Charlotte and — one of his favorites — a full-fledged food forest on a former cattle field in North Fort Myers.

“That was a fun one, to have just kind of this blank slate and come up with something that was just really beautiful,” he says.

The business also faces headwinds. It may require some sweat equity on the part of clients to care for native plants and food. While there is a vast service industry built around keeping traditional landscaping plants healthy, the roster for dealing with native plants common to the industry is much smaller.

“We just don’t have enough companies with knowledgeable staff,” Watkins says. “In general, a lot of the lawn maintenance and landscape companies don’t know what these plants are, so they get butchered or damaged with poor care or ignorant care. So that’s a real gap. If you don’t know the plants, the chance that you’ll maintain them well is really low.”

With a small crew of three or four employees, Ecovision is considering starting a subscription service for customers offering gardening help during the fall and spring. For instance, the company may help clients set up raised bed gardens for people interested in growing fruits and vegetables, and provide monthly checkup services, as well.

Many people aspire to have a garden or replace their sod with native varietals but never find time to do it. Ecovision aims to get clients started with a foundation that prevents future hassles by showing them the key plants and timing needed to maintain their landscapes successfully, whether in an inland town such as LaBelle or on Estero Island.

“I love what we’re doing,” Watkins says. “I feel like we’re offering something that is unique and special. I get a lot of fulfillment and satisfaction that we are helping people have better lives and thrive in the land that they have.”