Ron and Vicki Nowicki weren’t caught up in appearances or styles.  They simply wanted to design something based on principles that were modeled after the natural world and how it worked.  Interestingly, Ron found himself borrowing from history to design an energy-efficient, passive solar home.  He used a New England Salt Box design with an ice house roof for summer cooling, a central fireplace, a wood stove fed by wood gathered primarily from assorted landscape jobs, a huge rain barrel and of course a root cellar for moist cold storage to accommodate a good portion of their summer crops.  With respect to the landscape, he and Vicki used evergreen windbreaks to conserve energy in the winter and deciduous shade trees to cool the house in the summer.  They never used a single bit of mown lawn but filled their landscape with native plants, perennial food plants and a gigantic vegetable and herb garden.  When they began to plant flowers to attract beneficial insects, birds and bats, they dubbed their entire site a gardenfarm.  Who knew that 30 years later they would become the quintessential suburban permaculturists?  Once a novelty, Circle GardenFarm is now able to supply an almost year-round bounty of “local”, organic food.

Vicki Nowicki is degreed in Horticulture, Environmental Studies, Environmental Education and Museum Exhibit Research and Design.  Since receiving her Master's Degree 25 years ago, Vicki has focused her research on the history of attitudes and perceptions of home landscapes in America since Colonial times.   She and her husband Ron own a design/build firm, The Land Office where she focuses on Herbaceous Garden Design and Installation.  She has spent much of the last 30 years growing, harvesting and preserving the vegetables, fruits and herbs from the Circle GardenFarm, Ron and Vicki’s home/office permaculture landscape. She co-founded in 1992 the first chapter of The Wild Ones outside of Wisconsin, a group devoted to using native plants in the home landscape with an eye toward saving the energy and resources that mown lawns voraciously consume.  This organization has now spread nationwide.  Today, she is the president emeritus of the Downers Grove Organic Gardening Club, a group focused on growing vegetables in the home landscape.   She is well known for her expert teaching on a prolific number of diverse topics about growing vegetables, herbs, heirlooms and more.  Her fondest dream is to see everyone growing some food at home and cooking it with their families!  In 2008, Vicki launched a new business called Let's Grow.  She and her crew plant, maintain and harvest vegetables, herbs and cut flowers for clients who want to eat organically and learn the rhythms of the gardening season. Most notably, though, 2008 has been the year of the Liberty Gardens.  Hundreds of people have already posted signs and changed their lives by growing food at home!

Now in 2009 she has won the Gardener’s Supply National Garden Crusader Award for helping families restore their depleted soils and begin growing food with confidence again. 

She has co-founded the Slow Food City’s Edge Convivium , a division of Slow Food USA which serves the western suburbs.

She serves on the board of Familyfarmed.org, the major catalyst for many years in the Midwest for changes in the local food markets for farmers and consumers.

Vicki is an author, a teacher, a leader and a devoted environmentalist.

Ronald J. Nowicki is a Landscape Architect with a B.A from University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana.  He is also a certified Permaculture Designer.  Ron and his wife Vicki own The Land Office, a design/build landscape firm in Downers Grove, Illinois.  His tag line is "Landscape Design and Construction With an Ecological Conscience."  In his 35 years of work with residential clients, his main focus has been to help families re-connect with the natural world through ecologically sustainable landscape design.  Ron uses diverse, native and naturalistic plantings that form communities that conserve energy and resources.  Families have responded to the beauty, serenity, integrity and security that this kind of landscape provides.  All of Ron and Vicki’s work is centered on the teachings of Aldo Leopold and his Land Ethic. Ron is an author, a teacher and a devoted environmentalist.