Our Story

Telling friends where we lived was easy – “Just look for the 2-story house with a south facing wall of windows with black painted tanks inside”.  That was our passive solar home in Portland Oregon, 2000 gallons of water in standing culvert pipe. We hosted tours for many years and were active in the local solar communities.
 
Since our first Earth Day in 1972, one or both of us have been involved with environmental and sustainable activities.  From Bonnie’s focus on Green Building Design strategies, resources and materials at various architecture firms and Michael’s passive solar residential projects, we’ve participated at many levels in environmentally conscious professional settings.  And, the latest of these projects is the Zot.
 
Born from a desire for a better, cleaner, easier method of weeding, but more importantly, the Zot was created to challenge the use of RoundUp (i.e. glyphosate) full on. 
 
This tool with its simple concept, using just hot water to kill weeds, will not only be a game changer in the landscape industry, it is environmentally sustainable because it leaves no trace behind.
 

Meet the Founders

Michael Peterson
​Co-Founder
[email protected] 

Michael has had a lot of life experiences – including teaching 7th and 8th grades, home builder/contractor, IT consultant, and finally – inventor.  Tinkering has always been a part of his nature, from rebuilding lawnmowers as a kid to kitchen remodeling as an adult.  Put a skill-saw in his hand and he whistles while he works.

The Zot is a natural extension of his need to fix problems.  Watching Bonnie’s face on her way out to weed the garden (3-4 hours weekly) was all the encouragement he needed to build a safe, fast, organic alternative to Roundup or weeding by hand.  His original prototype looked like the love child of Steampunk and Rube Goldberg, but it worked.  The original prototype of the Zot reduced weeding time from 3-4 hours/week to 1 hour/week of point-and-shoot ease.  Many experiments and prototypes later, we are ready for the next generation of the Zot to emerge.

Bonnie Bruce
​​Co-Founder,  Owner of Celilo Gardens  
[email protected] 

Bonnie is a landscape designer, a gardener, a professed plant nerd and the unsuspecting motivation behind the birth of the Zot.  After years of weeding her own garden by hand and listening to the complaints of friends and clients, it was her grumbling that motivated Michael Peterson to take things into his own hands and invent the Zot.   

Having been focused on environmental issues for decades, her emphasis has always been on organic gardening and sustainable design strategies. The Zot was a natural next step. 
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Which proves that when one is listened to, really listened to…whining works. 


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