Pantree connects you with neighbors and local experts who've already figured it out. Transform your lawn in phases that fit your life—not the other way around.
What's your watershed called?
The Real Problem
You already know the math, even if you don't track it:
on mowing and maintenance you'd rather skip
of weekends spent on a lawn that gives you nothing back
draining into grass that turns brown anyway
And underneath all that? The quiet anxiety. Is the HOA going to send another letter? What will the neighbors think if I try something different? What if I spend money on plants and they all die?
The problem isn't motivation. You'd love a yard that actually worked. The problem is that figuring it out alone—juggling rebate applications, nursery trips, YouTube tutorials, and HOA rules—feels like a second job you didn't sign up for.
What if you didn't have to figure it out alone?
The Product
Pantree guides you through —from site analysis to planning. At each step, you choose: DIY with AI-powered guidance, or have a local expert handle it in person.
Your ecological neighborhood isn't your zip code—it's the land that shares your water, soil, and climate. We'll show you who's already transforming yards near you, what's working, and who can help.
Not ready for a full redesign? Fine. Start with one bed, one tree, one corner. Pantree's phased approach means you move at your pace—weekends you have, not weekends you don't.
Need a permaculture designer? A neighbor with extra mulch? Someone who's already navigated your HOA? The marketplace connects you with local people, not anonymous contractors. 5% fees on paid work—nothing on trades and gifts.
Every yard that transforms makes the next one easier. Share what works—the variety that survived the heat, the mulch source that delivers, the neighbor who can help. This is how suburbs become resilient: shared knowledge, shared tools, neighbors who actually know each other.
Pantree guides you through —from site analysis to planning. At each step, you choose: DIY with AI-powered guidance, or have a local expert handle it in person.
Your ecological neighborhood isn't your zip code—it's the land that shares your water, soil, and climate. We'll show you who's already transforming yards near you, what's working, and who can help.
Not ready for a full redesign? Fine. Start with one bed, one tree, one corner. Pantree's phased approach means you move at your pace—weekends you have, not weekends you don't.
Need a permaculture designer? A neighbor with extra mulch? Someone who's already navigated your HOA? The marketplace connects you with local people, not anonymous contractors. 5% fees on paid work—nothing on trades and gifts.
Every yard that transforms makes the next one easier. Share what works—the variety that survived the heat, the mulch source that delivers, the neighbor who can help. This is how suburbs become resilient: shared knowledge, shared tools, neighbors who actually know each other.
The Science
This is permaculture site analysis—the systematic observation of your land's unique conditions. Soil type, sun exposure, water flow, microclimates, existing vegetation. Pantree helps you map what's actually there: the assets you didn't know you had, the constraints you can work with instead of against. Your kids learn to read a landscape the way their great-grandparents once did.
From lawn to a landscape that feeds you. You declare your goals, constraints, and timeline—then use your imagination to test different hypotheses: What if the fruit tree goes here? What happens if we sheet-mulch that corner first? Pantree helps you prototype before you plant, sequencing what comes next season by season. Your family decides what this land becomes.
The scattered assets in your watershed—cardboard, compost, tools, cuttings, labor, know-how—become visible. Not just "who has what" but "what you'll need in 8 weeks, and who'll have it." Your kids see you building solutions instead of buying them. Problems become invitations, not defeats.
Your surplus enables the next yard. Knowledge spreads. Tools circulate. Each transformation strengthens the watershed. You're not just changing your property—you're building infrastructure for neighbors you haven't met yet. This is what your kids inherit: agency, not helplessness.
No Risk
We know what stops people: What if I do it wrong? What if the HOA comes after me? What if I kill everything? Here's how Pantree de-risks the whole thing:
The community feed isn't curated fantasy. It's people three blocks away showing what survived last summer's heat, what their HOA approved, and what they'd do differently. You're not the first person to try this—you're joining people who've already done it.
California law protects drought-tolerant landscaping (Civil Code §4735). But more importantly, you'll see what's already working in yards with HOAs like yours. No guessing—just patterns that have already passed.
EBMUD customers may be eligible for $1–$2/sq ft lawn conversion rebates (up to $2,000 per property in a 2-year period). There's also a pilot $200 design-assistance reimbursement. We help you understand eligibility and timing before you start.
Full membership is $5/month (or $50/year)—less than one gardener visit. If you want hands-on help, our "Reading the Landscape" consult is $295 for a founder visit to your actual yard.
A note from the founder
Hi—I'm Alborz.
Founder, Pantree
I've spent a lot of my life studying why people change. Not why they should—why they actually do. That question took me through epidemiology at UC Berkeley, behavioral science at Johns Hopkins, HIV/AIDS prevention work in Lesotho, farmer's markets in Baltimore, and most recently, urban health research in Singapore. And eventually, into permaculture—learned the hard way, in real yards, with practitioners who let me fail alongside them.
Somewhere in all that, I realized something uncomfortable: the same science that helps people can just as easily be used to trap them. I've watched the frameworks I studied get turned into attention machines—apps, food systems, entire patterns of being—designed to maximize engagement, erode autonomy, and leave people less capable of organizing their own lives.
And I kept noticing the kids. Growing up without ever touching soil. Unable to name a single plant on their block. A whole generation being raised without the basic ecological intelligence that humans always had—and you can see it in their health, their restlessness, their sense that they can't do anything that matters.
Here's the thing: people aren't stuck because they don't know what to do.
There are a thousand YouTube videos on sheet mulching. They're stuck because they're alone. No neighbor who knows what actually thrives here. No one to swap cuttings with. No one to call when things go wrong.
That's what Pantree is. The coordination layer that's been missing. Local knowledge, neighbors, tools, labor—organized by watershed, not zip code.
If any of that resonates, I'd love to have you as a founding member.
— Alborz
Saturday morning. Coffee in hand. You walk outside—not to mow, not to weed, not to fix anything. Just to see what's ripe.
The fig tree your neighbor helped you plant is heavy with fruit. The kid next door knows your name because she helped spread mulch last spring. Your water bill is half what it was. And the HOA? They stopped sending letters months ago.
This is what a yard becomes when you stop maintaining it and start growing something.
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