Andrea Mueller’s path to landscape design was anything but linear, shaped by a family nursery, multiple design disciplines and a core ideal. “I was always intrigued by the idea that spaces should be an extension of one another. So, the outside should be an extension of the inside, and the inside an extension of the outside,” she says.

Though her father owned Kentucky’s largest nursery, Mueller initially resisted horticulture. “As an angsty pre-teen, I honestly didn’t love working in the nursery,” she recalls. Drawn instead to architecture and design, she explored graphic and interior design before a clear desire for landscape work emerged.

Her diverse design experience proved foundational. “Working in all those design disciplines helped me to become the designer that I am,” Mueller notes, while plant knowledge came from family and mentor Paula Doane. From Doane, she absorbed design principles but later consciously shifted towards native plants, moving away from the invasive species common in earlier decades.

In 2007, Mueller and her husband, Michael, founded Inside Out Landscape Design. The company initially offered both interior and exterior services, but later focused exclusively on exterior design and build, reflecting booming interest in outdoor living. “It wasn’t super popular when we started, but as time has gone on, outdoor living has really expanded and blown up,” she observes.

Sustainability became a calling card, influenced early by architect William McDonough. “That really empowered me,” Mueller says of McDonough’s “cradle to cradle” philosophy. Her firm’s office is geothermal and solar-powered, and projects now prioritize native plants. “And no invasive; that’s always been a rule,” she states, even if it means declining a project.

Now an APLD-certified designer, Mueller looks to the future, considering employee ownership for Inside Out. “I love the idea of people who helped to build the company having more of a stake in it,” she says, emphasizing a circular model that perpetuates the company’s values. What began as a teenage reluctance has blossomed into a career deeply rooted in family legacy and ecological responsibility.

Find out more about Andrea’s vision represented through Inside Out Landscape Design in the latest issue of Pro Landscaper USA.