Christa Jane Bush is a certified horticulturist and landscape professional celebrating nearly 10 years of excellence in grounds maintenance, landscape design and management. Now serving as the account manager for Yellowstone Landscape, she was an area manager for Ruppert Landscape Inc., where she managed maintenance and enhancement services for a portfolio of more than 70 commercial, government and large residential clients across Virginia, beginning in 2018. Raised in a school district with robust career and technical education offerings, Ms. Bush first began taking horticulture and landscape design classes in high school simply to fill a gap in her schedule. She quickly fell in love with the unique challenges of the work, and decided to pursue further education in the specialty. After high school, Ms. Bush enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, graduating in 2016 with a Bachelor of Science in horticulture and dual minors in music and turfgrass management.
While in college, she further refined her skills by accepting several golf course and grounds maintenance internships with prestigious properties throughout Virginia and West Virginia. Throughout the 2015-2016 academic year, Ms. Bush was appointed president of the horticulture club at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and served as a teacher’s assistant in floral design classes. The same year, she began to make a name for herself on a national level, winning the John Deere scholarship and several awards in the National Association of Landscape Professionals’ National Collegiate Landscaping Competition. Following her graduation, Ms. Bush began her career as an enhancement supervisor for LevelGreen Landscaping. She became an account manager for BrightView Landscape Services Inc. later that year, and would remain with the company until moving into her role at Ruppert Landscape in 2018.
Since her tenure with Ruppert Landscape, Ms. Bush has only continued to build a reputation for her deep knowledge of all aspects of the field and an attention to detail that ensures that her clients’ properties remain in perfect shape. Currently, her day to day duties include annual flower design and installation for clients as well as additional services, such as 3D rendering. In recognition of her stellar portfolio of work and commitment to the industry, Ms. Bush was presented with the 2019 National Association of Landscape Professionals Gold Award and profiled in Landscape Management Magazine’s 2020 feature article “The Big One – A Corporate Retreat.” Despite the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms. Bush is proud to have been Ruppert Landscape’s top-selling employee for four consecutive months, with more than $1.8 million in contracts sold and produced, and she was honored with a Branch Impact Award as well as Gold Awards from the National Association of Landscape Professionals and the Landscape Contractors Association for her excellence as an area manager.
Ms. Bush credits her ongoing success to her hard work, consistency and teamwork with the crews she supervises. She hopes to remain with Yellowstone Landscape, and is excited for the opportunities created for her by the company’s expansion. Within five years, she hopes to become the branch manager of a new location, and looks forward to continuing to develop her skill set and explore new areas of the landscape management field. In her leisure time, Ms. Bush is an accomplished violinist and a former member of the New River Valley Symphony Orchestra.
