Social Media Success Stories: Lani & Garth Woodruff

As part of our ongoing Design Online series, we are talking with APLD members about their social media experiences. This month, we sat down with Lani and Garth Woodruff at RootBound. If you’re feeling pressured to crank out content faster than you can think, it might be time to slow down long enough to actually hear what your best ideas are trying to say.

Could you share a bit about your background and company?

We both started in the early 90s studying horticulture with concentrations in landscape design, and launched a design-build business right out of school. After 15+ years and the 2008 recession, we knew we wanted our careers to look different, even though we still loved the landscape world.

In 2011, Andrews University recruited Garth, and Lani focused on transitioning our Virginia business while we relocated to Michigan. There, we built a business plan around our strengths and intent: less production-minded, more design-driven. That led to RootBound, a design-only firm that manages projects through the build.

We chose to stay intentionally small and bespoke, a team of about 5–6, working largely on high-end second homes—often waterfront—where clients want to truly live outdoors. Over time, we’ve built strong relationships with local craftsmen, architects, and engineers. Our roots in residential work and a market with many second homeowners and few designers gave us fertile ground to grow, and eventually, Garth stepped back from full-time teaching to focus fully on the firm.

As horticulturists, one of the biggest joys of this design-focused model is being able to lean more deeply into planting design while orchestrating everything that happens outside the home.

How did you develop your knack for social media?

In all honesty, we don’t think we’ve developed a knack. Social media has always been a struggle for us. Largely because at our core, we are more introspective artists rather than braggards and advertisers. We wouldn’t doubt that most in our industry feel this way. But as a necessity and to stay relevant, we built it into our business. In our case, we have a younger set of associates.

The rub between generations is oddly helpful, and how we each engage differently with social media. We know our clients engage on specific platforms. So, our formula is simple, and as a business, we have built it into our process. Every winter, we have a work session on the annual marketing with monthly checkpoints. Each month, we look at those as a team for about 30 minutes. And each week, one of the staff is designated to execute the plan. This moves around with jobs and moments of inspiration. But consistency is the game for us. We feed it energy every week! It’s not accidental.

How do you determine what content to share on your social platforms? Is there a guiding philosophy or strategy behind your posts?

This moves around a lot. We have built a recipe to simplify our thinking. For example, we may go through a period where on Mondays we show design work, Wednesdays we show site work and Fridays something just beautiful or uplifting. This moves around, but in general, our goal is to take some of the thinking out of our systems to simplify what is a very busy schedule.

Overall, our goal is to showcase our process. We have a process to execute complex projects. We want to educate the viewer that good design comes with a cost. We use social media to pull the curtain back in some ways; to show the time and investment that it takes to get to elevated goals that our clients share.

Your podcast adds another layer to your brand. Where can listeners find it? What kind of behind-the-scenes work goes into each episode? Also, who did you have in mind as your ideal listener when you launched the podcast? Has that audience changed over time?

The podcast was a child of COVID-19. Garth’s work in academics and research interests had him deep into how we relate to places in our human experience. But we also see how deeper psychological phenomena can be relatable in everyday life. For example, fast music in a restaurant will make you eat faster, and an orange room will aggravate most people. So, how we design spaces is more than just something beautiful, but rather a deep human experience.

Those experiences are shaped by so many people, musicians, architects, and even your health department will shape the spaces you live in and, in many ways, your life. The podcast was talking about ‘place’ with all the many characters who would shape it knowingly or unknowingly.

RootBound has dramatically grown and currently takes up the time needed to maintain a podcast. But the intent is to revisit this. Our social media plan is built on knowing everyone gets their media in different ways: viewing, reading, listening, etc. The podcast is a fun way to seek understanding in our craft, but also another avenue to reach people.

Is there a guiding philosophy or strategy that keeps your social media from becoming “just more content” and instead an extension of your design practice?

It’s built to be an extension of our design practice. For example, every Friday in our staff meeting, we take turns sharing ‘inspiration.’ We present to the team what is inspiring us in the design world currently. We then extend that forward to those who follow us. We do social media because we must; we try not to make it self-aggrandizing. Building it as part of our practice is the best way for us to realize that.

We do our best to celebrate the people, places and products we are lucky enough to work with. This somehow naturally builds it as less content and more purpose. That said, we have our weeks and seasons. Consistency is what matters, and that can slip into routine and just content. It’s always a thin line we walk.

If another landscape designer is just starting to take social media seriously, what are the first 2–3 things you’d tell them to focus on, and what should they avoid?

Know the market you’re reaching and what platform they will be on.

Build a plan that you can consistently execute and not have to overthink when you’re in your busy work week. Authenticity sets your business apart. Be the best image of you, but be an honest image.