Melissa Gottlieb
I was born and raised in New York City but some of my earliest and happiest memories were planting flowers with my father, and building a small vegetable garden together. I can still remember the excitement I felt waiting for the seeds to bust through the soil, and watching with pride as the fruits of our labor ripened, and bloomed.
Thus began my love for gardening.
When my hands are deep in the soil, and I can smell the dirt, I am in my happy place. I find weeding therapeutic, and mowing the lawn is the epitome of instant gratification. As I have gotten older, I have less free time, less energy, and far less patience for planting seeds that don’t produce. As a result, I spent a lot of time fine tuning what I planted to get an abundance of blooms and color with minimal soil preparation, and minimal maintenance.
My perennials reseed themselves, and my annuals all have seeds that are easy to harvest. Come Fall and Spring, I toss my harvested seeds out and wait for the magic to begin all over again! And that’s pretty much how the idea of Bend Seed Co. started. A love for gardening, a love for flowers, and discovering how to have the flower gardens I’ve always wanted with minimal upkeep and expense.
I hope that you enjoy our seeds as much as I have enjoyed harvesting them for you!
Jane Sobel Klonsky
My journey began in 1976, camera in hand, as I scaled the Verrazano Bridge to photograph the start of the NYC Marathon. That adventure led to a career in photography—shooting ad campaigns, sports events, and publishing books with Simon & Schuster and National Geographic. Along the way, my husband Arthur and I traveled across the country with our two Great Danes, eventually settling on a farm in rural Vermont.
Back then, Arthur gardened and I mucked stalls—I didn’t have much interest in plants beyond admiring their beauty. But everything changed when we moved to Bend, Oregon at the start of the pandemic. Faced with endless grass and rising water bills, I turned to clover as a drought-tolerant alternative. That small step turned into something bigger. When Arthur ordered bulbs, I found myself loving the hands-on work of planting, though the blooms felt too neat, too planned.
Then came Melissa. She introduced me to wildflowers and a whole new way of gardening—loose, natural, joyful. Together, we pulled weeds, scattered seeds, and waited. And then… magic. I was hooked.
Now, I spend my days with dirt under my nails and a huge smile on my face. What started as a way to save water turned into a full-blown passion and a brand new chapter. I’m still learning, still experimenting, and loving every minute of it.