About

Jocelyn Cohen is the principal at Poetree Landscapes & Arboriculture. As a ISA Certified Arborists® WE-7063A and Certified Aesthetic Pruner #028 she has extensive experience with pruning, tree care and garden restoration. By the time she was four years old, the large Chinese elm in her back yard became her sanctuary. Like most kids, tree climbing came naturally. In college she majored in the arts from painting to graphic design.

She was always drawn to the lush colors and textures of fruits and vegetables in her painting and later made paper from plants gathered on the 12 acre country land under her stewardship. Moving to San Francisco she refocused her work from rural and wilderness forest preservation to working on urban forest issues. She was active both on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Tree Council, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and protection of existing mature trees and also held a seat on The Urban Forest Council for the City of San Francisco, which advises city departments, including the Board of Supervisors and the mayor on comprehensive urban forestry issues. Simultaneously, she discovered arboriculture was a field of study. She pursued both landscape horticulture and garden design classes while apprenticing with Dennis Makishima, the aesthetic arborist who codified aesthetic pruning. She brings all these skills and expertise to her work and her joy in pruning both individual focal point plants – big and small – as well as entire gardens.