About

Our team sees every job as a privilege and a responsibility. Our mission is to lead people into a love affair with their gardens, to help them to collaborate with Nature as an artistic partner.

Wherever we’re asked to begin, in the end we have one purpose: to create beautiful surroundings that nurture and inspire.

The roots of GreenTree’s landscaping operations are personal, starting when our founder Michael Baer was a small boy following behind his father’s tractor on the family’s farm.

At 15, Michael inherited his older brother’s car, invested in a lawn mower and lined up neighbors as his first clients. Eventually he left the family farm, worked his way up to become Captain of a fire engine company, finished a political science degree at UCLA and traveled the world (literally) as a foreign-post journalist. But after living and working in more than 13 countries throughout Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and South America, Baer returned to Southern California and his childhood home.

Formally opening GreenTree Landscaping in the early 1980s, Baer designed the business around twin aspirations: creating beautiful natural surroundings and building lasting creative relationships with his clients.