Industry Spotlight Peer to Peer Insight

Meet Your Grower Representative Kate Domoszlay, T&L Nursery

As the WSNLA Grower representative, I hope I can make an impact and contribute to the future by listening, learning, pitching in, and sharing experience.

Tell us about your professional background and how it has shaped yoru current work.

After leaving the medical field, I decided to go back to school. While in school studying landscape planning and design at Pierce College in Woodland Hills CA, I worked at a small family owned nursery, Sheridan Gardens selling any and all plants.

After moving to Washington, I started to work at Molbak’s in the tropicals department, and became the Buyer after about a year. I helped to open our University Village store, and also serviced our store at Pike Place Market for 5 years, before moving on to our Farm where I became the Information Manager handling crop planning, product development and buying. After 12 years, I returned to the retail store in Woodinville, and helped them transition from being a Grower/ Retailer to Retailer while working with many outside growers to supply the store with annuals, perennials and poinsettias.

After 11 years, I decided to make the move to contracting with local growers, and started working for T&L Nursery as a Product Developer. Here, I work with the planning team to forecast and provide the newest coolest plants for our market of Independent Garden Centers and Landscapers. Having all the experience on the retail side as well as the production side of the business, working with many Growers and Breeders, I have a good grasp on what is needed to succeed in the world of ornamental horticulture today. I love the industry that has allowed me to learn, and grow professionally, as well as gaining so many lifelong friends.

What do you love most about the work you do currently?

I love the ability to draw on past experience to problem solve and dream up new ways to meet the consumer demand, while being efficient and profitable. I’ve forged new relationships, met new interesting people, and learned so much.

Through the eyes of a wholesale grower, what opportunities are you most excited about for the Spring 2023 season? What are you most concerned about?

I am excited to help us streamline our selection, and be relevant to the current trends for our customers. It’s exciting to be part of a team that is thinking ‘outside of the box’ to achieve more during challenging times. Of course the economy is a source for concern, and I would like to think that in a downturn, we will help those spending more time at home, to improve the nature that surrounds them.

As you join the WSNLA Board of Directors, what initiatives are you most interested in working on behalf of the industry?

I would have to say that ‘industry promotion to new audiences about the benefits of plants & trees, and value of landscapes’ is at my core the reason why I work in this industry. To plant the planet, to share the love of nature and the wellbeing that comes with it is my north star.

That said, I would also be interested in growing our industry workforce through promotion of careers and career development tools. Since it has been rewarding in every way to me. We also need more young people coming into this industry to be the next stewards for the future.