The History So Far and a Map to the Future “Start Here”

Welcome to Richard A. McCoy – Regenerative Land Care Guide

By Richard A. McCoy

Discover Richard McCoy’s 35-year journey from conventional landscaping to regenerative land care. Learn how an early connection to the ocean and to nature sparked a system that heals landscapes rather than harming them.

ORIGIN STORY PART 1

Our Roots and a Guide to Regenerative Land Care

Did you know that conventional landscaping practices like synthetic fertilizers and frequent tilling have been recognized to systematically degrade the very soil they’re meant to enhance? When you come to understand that soil is the basis of supporting all life on Earth, you will see why a fundamental change in landscape management is necessary. This realization has changed everything about how I approach land care.

I’m not here to preach from some ivory tower. Heck, I was part of the problem for fifteen years! Your purpose is greater than just going through the motions—you plant the plant, the plant gets sick, you take a random stab at a diagnosis or seek advice from some random online sources then hoping for a silver bullet you spray it with synthetic chemicals, only to have it die because it was planted in the wrong spot (or improperly). All of these actions lead to stress of some sort and the problem was never an insect or disease issue but a cultural one. You replant the same plant in the same place, the same way, and the cycle repeats. I believe we have grown so accustomed to three social norms that it has become difficult to understand how there may actually be a way forward in landscaping without following the generational status quo.

First, we are a culture of planned or built-in obsolescence, a waste economy. Just like a cheap home printer that breaks down, we assume that plants simply die, so we toss them out and buy new ones. We can do better.

Second, coinciding with the “waste economy” is that over the past 70 years, society has been led to believe that the only way to “manage landscapes” is through synthetic chemical intervention. For generations, we have been told by petrochemical marketers that maintaining landscapes can only be achieved through their products. In addition, plant producers have (up to now, at least) marketed plants solely on their aesthetic appeal rather than their negative or positive ecological function.

Third, consider the concept of “Cues to Care,” a term coined by Joan Iverson Nassauer in her paper “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames” (Landscape Journal, Vol. 14, No. 2, Fall 1995). Nassauer argues that people are more likely to accept ecologically functional but visually perceived as “messy” landscapes, such as native meadows or rain gardens, that are not aligned with conventional, generational expectations of “neat” landscapes. However, when they include visual signals of human care such as mown edges, fences or paths, signage, and neat borders, these design elements known as “Cues to Care” are visual indicators that a landscape is intentional and maintained, even if it looks wild or socially unconventional.

I completely agree with this concept and use it in practice. However, the Cues to Care we’ve inherited are a visual lexicon of landscape maintenance that equates beauty with a domineering approach to landscaping. Razor-short acres of European turf grass, shrubs that are pruned into submission and shoved up against foundations, and trees placed in close proximity to buildings without considering their size at maturity. These practices reinforce an unnatural ideal of landscape maintenance. Between consumer expectations and the industry filling a need, what we have in place now becomes incredibly challenging to dislodge, making it difficult to envision alternative approaches.

But there is another way. An approach that moves away from generationally accepted, conventional landscaping, and I’ll teach that approach in our blog, newsletter, and other offerings as our community grows.

WELCOME! I‘M SO GLAD YOU’RE HERE!!

The History So Far

From my early career, around 1990, as an arborist, and during my tenure with a high-end estate design-build landscape management company, a premium was placed on employee education, for which I am forever grateful. I opened the doors of McCoy Horticultural as a conventional landscape company that officially incorporated in 1998. However, it was in 2005 that my eyes really opened. The seas parted, and the landscape world as I knew it flipped on its head. It was at this time that my company began its transition away from conventional landscaping, and the real journey began.

And we never looked back.

The catalyst:

The turning point wasn’t one dramatic moment. It was more like death (or life) by a thousand realizations. Admittedly, there was a reluctance at first to shift to organic systems, which is why I totally understand the hesitancy of today’s landscape industry to make wholesale changes overnight. This is an unsettling process at first. So, I get it; I lived it. I was challenged to manage landscapes in a different way. The events that led to this realization included a chance meeting with someone who became a great friend and mentor, Barry Draycot, who is a total legend in New Jersey organics with a fantastic breadth of knowledge and no tentativeness to share it. He was the first to say, “Why don’t you try organics?” I also had a receptive client base and room for trials and errors. Boy, were there errors! At this time, there was very little known about organics in NJ (we’ll get to this in a later post). Over the course of about 18 months, I went from conventional landscaping to a deep dive into Organic Land Care, especially after a day-long meeting in 2006 of the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Connecticut (CT NOFA) in Somerset, NJ. I met the pioneers of OLC, including CT NOFA Founder the late Bill Duesing, Tod Harrington, and Chip Osbourne (guru of organic turf management and also an amazing mentor), as well as others. I heard of soil biological life for the first time, which coincided with some personal changes occurring in the background. But the idea of soil biology and the images they shared blew my mind. It was no longer about NPK as it is in conventional turf management. While NPK still has relevance, it is no longer the bellwether to good turf grass or successful planting projects; it was bacteria, fungi, cation exchange, protozoa, and cycling of N as the driving gauge for good soil and hence good turf. I was fully immersed. Deep end of the pool – time to swim.

Prior to this point, I’d watch the same clients’ properties struggle with diseased plants that needed constant chemical intervention. We’d apply synthetic fertilizers or pesticides that seemed to create more problems than they solved. Or, top-dress plants with manure or compost without knowing the real reason why. It was just something you did. The whole system felt like we were fighting against nature instead of working with it, and indeed we were.

But here’s the thing that really got to me. I could see the disconnect and feel it in my bones. Surfers have a way of “reading” the ocean, which becomes intuitive over time. Reading the ocean means watching the horizon for larger sets of waves and where they are going to break, so they can position themselves in just the right take-off spot. It was that same intuition screaming something was fundamentally wrong with how we approached land care.

This seems like a good place to set honest expectations before we move on.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m no Nobel laureate, and I make no claims now or ever to be known as one. By no means would my writing ever be confused with the likes of Thoreau, Muir, or Leopold. As a matter of fact, had there been a high school award for “Least Likely to Form a Complete Sentence,” I might’ve nailed it. I despised writing as a youth, and grammar was never my strong suit, and it still isn’t.

Then what of college, you ask? Well, this was definitely not some of my best work. But it was important. I chose a college that would follow the field of graphic arts, and just coincidentally (or not), it happened to be close to an East Coast surfing hub. So, during my first (and only) semester of college, to further distance myself from scholarly pursuits, I spent more time at the beach surfing than in the classroom. I figured out pretty quickly that if my vocation had me stuck indoors for the rest of my life, that wasn’t going to work for me.

That said, while my words in this blog may not be poetic, there is real value in the information.

The Ocean Connection, The Woods, and Subculture

That pull to the ocean wasn’t just about skipping class; I had been surfing since around the age of 7, dipping my toes in the water, to pre-teen years where I started surfing in contests. It was a way to connect with nature, and that connection shaped everything.

My formative years were spent as a skateboarding surfing, suburban Gen X subculture kid who never quite fit into any box. If you know me, that explains a lot. If you don’t know me, buckle up you’ll find out. If I wasn’t at my grandparents’ home at the beach in the water, I was at home in suburbia and in the woods. It was in these two places that nature became part of me, and I became part of it. The other slice of this suburban equation was that if I wasn’t in the woods or at the beach, I was either skating street or vert at a friend’s house, where we built a halfpipe with materials “generously donated” from a local building development.

In the ocean, a surfer feels the pulse of the Earth. Each wave peaks a heartbeat, and each trough a breath. There’s a moment where skill and sea become one, when you’re not riding the wave, you are the wave. To feel that pulse as a young person sets a rhythm in your soul, a lifelong pull to be part of something wild, free, and not conform. You don’t just chase waves—you chase the feeling of being part of nature itself, and nature conforms for no one.

The ocean and the woods taught me to be still, patient, and to be observant, and to adapt to unforeseen obstacles. Skateboarding additionally reinforced the same philosophy—constantly adapting to obstacles, finding creative lines, and questioning why things are designed the way they are (and then figuring out ways to jump, slide, or skate off of them). These experiences cultivated an outsider instinct to question why and not to accept something as true just because someone says it is. To challenge so-called norms and dig deeper for answers.

These experiences led me to choose the less-traveled trail, and this is exactly what prepared me for my work in Regenerative Land Care. Always asking “why do we do it this way?” and “what if there’s a better approach?” This is what called me to help heal our planet.

The Commitment

By no means should my lack of interest in academic endeavors be mistaken for not taking my work seriously. On the contrary, from my early career learning the difference between an oak and a maple to my growing understanding of holistic practices, I have developed systems for my business that serve our community. Once I realized that Regenerative Land Care could heal people and places, I held onto these philosophies like I was Frodo clutching his golden ring.

I’ve spent years and significant money working through the trial-and-error that comes with doing things differently. Every plant loss taught me something about site preparation. Every failed design showed me something about working with natural systems instead of imposing humans will. I believe these things are what taught me to understand nature, and that fighting the forces of nature is exhausting and futile.

It’s not unlike surfing: experienced surfers look for a rip current—a narrow channel that carries them (somewhat) effortlessly like a conveyor belt past the crashing waves, because they understand how to move with the ocean. In this way, you’re working with nature—and you may just catch the wave of a lifetime.

In contrast, the inexperienced surfer paddles straight into the breakers. This is like someone trying to walk up a downward escalator with a rope tied around their waist being pulled backward, while a gorilla pounds them over the head with mangoes. When you fight nature, you end up exhausted, washed back to shore, sitting on the beach with your tail between your legs, mind-surfing while the core lords out back are actually shredding.

Working with nature? That’s where the magic happens.

A Map to The Future:

The Evolution – Standing on Giants’ Shoulders

As we shifted away from conventional practices, we found ourselves in deeper conversations with other organic land care practitioners about how the definition of organic practices needed a closer look (despite being essential). We needed to refine how organic practices fit into land care. This required breaking down organic practices and viewing organics as a method of understanding that organic should relate to the inputs being used in the system. These inputs include materials such as compost (tea or others), 25B or biopesticides, and soil amendments. The other items are developmental, physical, or cultural, providing no organic input. This includes designs and installations, pruning, planting, maintenance, structural considerations, and so on.

It also became clear that we weren’t the first on this path, and an evolution was taking place. Our work builds on the legacy of others such as Sir Albert Howard and Lady Eve Balfour, pioneers of the organic farming movement, who showed us that soil is alive, not just dirt to hold plants upright. The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) utilized the United States Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program for agriculture to establish its framework and help define the Organic Land Care Standards, providing a structured approach rather than just winging it. We also drew from decades of field-tested work by those trying to reconcile stewardship with practicality. They weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, figuring out what actually worked long-term. Over time, through practice and reflection (and plenty of mistakes), we came to see Regenerative Land Care not as a trend, but as a necessary evolution.

It was the early and continued conversations that planted the seeds of Regenerative Land Care, a system built not just on “less harm,” but on active renewal, ecological literacy, systematic thinking, people, and community. This was the beginning of what I would come to develop as The Four Pillars of Regenerative Land Care Systems Framework™.

And so, this blog exists to share what I’ve learned and to serve and support gardeners, property managers, HOAs, institutions, and, of course, those in the professional landscape industry, who want to care for the land in ways that heal rather than deplete it.

This blog, Richard A. McCoy – Regenerative Land Care Guide, is the continuation of that journey.

What You’ll Find Here

Real-world guidance shaped by 35+ years—from spectacular failures to lasting successes.

Ecological insights on soil health, native plants, and low-impact tools that make the difference between thriving and struggling landscapes.

Practical tools for every scale, from tiny urban gardens to large institutional properties.

A welcoming space that values curiosity over perfection, progress over purity.

Whether you’re tending a backyard, managing a college campus, or rethinking landscape contracts, this blog helps you make decisions that are smarter, kinder, and more in tune with the land.

Feeling a connection to nature is truly an experience that I believe few understand. Whether it’s the soft gusts of a summer breeze, the way light refracts to form a rainbow, stepping outside before the sun is up for a Dawn Patrol surf session, or feeling the ocean’s pulse while waiting for a wave, it’s in these moments of stillness and quiet that you can sense that connection. One of the lessons I’ve learned on this journey is to slow down, appreciate, and observe. Without these moments, your growth slows because you miss essential cues from nature that often go unnoticed when we hurry through our daily lives.

It is my sincerest hope that I can help bring this connection to nature to you.

A Note on Sustainability

I want to be honest with you right from the start. There will be a monetization component to this work. I believe that what we offer with our subscription tiers and special programs in the pipeline will provide great value to you. I’ve invested significant time, money, and sweat learning through trial and error. This is not a complaint; it’s the reality of a labor of love and passion. This blog shares that hard-earned insight to help others skip years of stumbling in the dark. Learning Regenerative Land Care hasn’t been cheap—I’ve made expensive mistakes that taught valuable lessons. Now, I can help you avoid those same costly errors. This work must be economically sustainable to serve you long-term, but I will always prioritize integrity and genuine value for those committed to healing the land we all share.

Thanks for being here. I hope this space gives you something useful—whether it’s a new idea, a better practice, or confidence to try something new and exciting.

– Richard A McCoy