![\"Kylee](\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/Kylee-Baumle-feature-8-2013-at-book-signing.jpg\")
<\/a>After the last few years of drought and seemingly brown everything, local gardeners and growers were given a reprieve this year, and Baumle couldn\u2019t be happier about it. \u201cWe\u2019ve had so many hot and dry summers it was just getting ridiculous,\u201d Baumle said, adding \u201cmy husband and I were just driving ourselves crazy with watering.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a lot to water. Baumle and her husband have about an acre of land near Wayne Trace High School, with much of that land used to grow everything from petunias to peanuts. It\u2019s a lifestyle Baumle undoubtedly picked up from her mother, Louise Hartwig, a local green-thumber herself who was instrumental in bringing the much-loved Children\u2019s Garden to Smiley Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess we just kind of speak the same language,\u201d Baumle said of her mother. \u201cI grew up with it and she just always gardened. I\u2019m sure she wished that I had taken it up seriously earlier than I did, but better late than never,\u201d she added with a laugh.<\/p>\n
A dental hygienist by trade and mother to two daughters, Baumle just didn\u2019t have the time to devote to gardening until her daughters were grown and she could cut back on her work schedule. A trip in 2005 with her mother to the Cleveland Flower Show sealed the deal. \u201cI really think that\u2019s when I fell in love with it,\u201d she said, adding, \u201ceverything I saw there I wanted to come home and do it here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting out small, Baumle and her husband, Roman, have added elements to the landscape and gardens every year. And just when she thinks they\u2019ve reached capacity, \u201cI see something and think \u2018ooh, I want to grow that,\u2019\u201d she said, adding \u201cI say all the time there\u2019s always room for Jello, and I guess there\u2019s always room for another plant.\u201d<\/p>\n
With some encouragement from her oldest daughter, Kara, Baumle began writing a blog about her gardening adventures and Baumle quickly found an online audience who shared her passion. \u201cAt that time, I thought blogs were just free web space that people fill up with whatever, so I really wasn\u2019t too enthusiastic about it,\u201d Baumle said.<\/p>\n
But before too long, Baumle\u2019s blog was getting quite a bit of attention, not only from readers, but from several companies and vendors. \u201cCompanies began asking me to try their products and write about them, and I guess everything kind of snowballed from there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
That snowball turned into an avalanche, so to speak. Baumle began getting writing jobs for different gardening companies, and she was also contacted by different magazines looking for a writer. Baumle began building her resume and has written for big-name companies such as Troy-Bilt and also regularly for Ohio Gardener Horticulture<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Additionally, she is the garden book review editor for Horticulture<\/i>, and last year, Baumle and her co-writer signed a contract to write a book that came out in April of this year.<\/p>\n
The book, Indoor Plants D\u00e9cor: Design Stylebook for Houseplants<\/i>, is available on Amazon. P. Allen Smith, author of the best-selling Bringing the Garden Indoors: Containers, Crafts and Bouquets for Every Room<\/i>, said this of Baumle\u2019s book: \u201cKylee Baumle and Jenny Peterson\u2019s passion for designing with indoor plants makes them the perfect guides to help us make new, fresh and stylish additions to every room. The brilliance of Indoor Plant D\u00e9cor<\/i> is its clarity in communicating their creative ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n