About Living Landscapes Design

The Team

Trent Rhode: Lead Designer, Owner & Founder

Trent has been practicing organic and permaculture gardening since 2004 and has two Permaculture Design Courses and a teacher training under his belt, along with years of formal education, great mentors, self-directed learning, and direct experience in permaculture and ecological design.

He is a life-long learner and loves both formal and informal learning, having studied Alternative Land Use Practices and Arboriculture at the University of Guelph, and Integrative Eco-Social Design through Gaia University (applying holistic design to and integrating ecological and social processes). He is currently studying Ecological Restoration through the University of Victoria.

In 2012 Trent started a garden design and landscaping company in Peterborough, Ontario, and designed and installed forest gardens, vegetable gardens, decorative gardens, and educational gardens in the region. He was lucky enough to be mentored during this time by Catherine Tapner, a decorative and ecological landscape designer with decades of experience, who he worked with and learned from for the next three years.

In 2016 he shifted his focus to working on an off-grid 75-acre farm near Madoc, Ontario where he designed, implemented, and managed orchards/forest gardens and other gardens on the farm. Recently he has moved to Wakefield, Quebec where he moved his plant nursery to another farm he is working with on a long-term design.

Since 2019 he has also been studying large scale regenerative farm design from educator and regenerative farm designer Richard Perkins, including learning about and implementing keyline designs and holistic management. Since 2020 he has also been studying ecological restoration with the University of Victoria as he continues working on his own farm and homestead and completing designs for clients.

Ana Teova: Architect, Permaculture Designer

Ana completed her Master of Architecture at the Saints Cyril and Methodius University in Macedonia in 2013. Since then, she has gained experience through a variety of design projects internationally, from residential and public building designs to urban planning and permaculture designs.

She has become increasingly interested in designing sustainable buildings using natural materials, gaining direct on-the-ground experience at building sites to better understand how her building designs can integrate with the surrounding environment. She has also taken numerous workshops for designing and constructing buildings with natural materials, including straw bale, cob, rammed earth, stone, clay, and plasters.

Ana finished a permaculture design course in 2016 and has been working on permaculture projects and landscape designs in different locations and different climates since then. She has also studied and practiced keyline design, a water-sensitive landscape design approach.

Creating healthy living spaces that are in harmony with nature is her highest priority when designing landscapes and buildings. Her goal is to create buildings and landscapes that are highly integrated and take into account the location and surrounding environment.