About

Horticulture & Ecology Applied

Since the beginning, the work of Osage Inc. has been focused on “horticulture and ecology applied,” and how that relates to the various needs of our clients and the sites they care for.

Horticulture is often seen simply as the science and cultivation of plants for human benefit. The application of these ideas in urbanized areas has probably never been more important. Ecological thinking includes a desire to also benefit the flora and fauna that share these environments.

Dave Coulter, Horticulturist

Dave Coulter has been the owner of Osage Inc. (Oak Park, IL) since 1997. In all, he has forty years of experience working in the full range of landscape and urban forestry contracting and consultation in both the public and private sectors in the Chicago area and the Midwest. Clients have included municipalities, engineering and landscape architecture firms, corporate facilities, property managers, homeowner associations, landscape and arborist contractors, public utilities, and private landowners. 

Mr. Coulter received an Associate's and Bachelor's degree in 1980 & 1981 (Technical Careers; Southern Illinois University) and a Master's degree (Zoology, Miami University) in 2016. The focus of that work focused on the biodiversity values of hedgerow-type features in the contemporary landscape. 

Mr. Coulter is an ISA Certified and TRAQ Arborist and has long been engaged with the local arboriculture community and various environmental organizations. He continues to collaborate on matters of mutual interest (urban forestry, ecological restoration, agroforestry, etc.) with practitioners across the United States.

Since 2012 he has also served as an adjunct instructor at Triton College (River Grove, IL) in their horticulture programs, and has worked with them to develop online courses in those subjects.

Inspiration

The inspiration for the name of Osage, Inc. comes from the Osage-orange tree (Maclura pomifera). A remnant hedgerow consisting of these trees that had persisted into the 20th-century landscape was nearby, and was one of the first trees Dave learned about as a youngster. He has fond memories of those rough, old trees — durable plants that served a variety of purposes for settlers and farmers as the Midwest was being populated.