ELIA VARGAS is an Oakland-based artist and curator whose work investigates human identity. Elia is interested in culture, code, cities, and cells emerging as new landscapes and organisms that challenge us to reimagine ourselves. He has shown nationally and internationally and received numerous awards, including the SF Foundation Murphy Cadogan MFA Fellowship. www.eliavargas.com 

DANIELLE ERNEST is a Seattle-based freelance writer. After 14 years of working in wholesale horticulture Danielle recently formed Flora & Fauna Media to assist wholesale and retail horticulture companies with marketing, public relations, and social media. Danielle’s writing has been featured in both trade and consumer publications. She is passionate about plants and hopes to one day be the author of her own publication.

SASHA DUERR is a Bay Area textile artist and designer working with biodiversity and reviving seasonal and local plant-based color. She is the founder of Permacouture Institute, an educational non-profit supporting regenerative design for fashion and textiles based in San Francisco, California. Sasha is the author of The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes (Timber Press), and is a professor at the California College of the Arts where she develops curriculum in the intersection between slow textiles and social practice. Her work has been featured in American Craft Magazine, The Huffington Post, and The New York Times.

JEFFREY BALE is a garden artist known for his pebble mosaic work. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Landscape Architecture. At home in Portland, Oregon, Jeffrey builds gardens for most of the year and spends every winter traveling. His travels throughout Mexico, South America, Southeast Asia, India, and the Mediterranean, influence his art. “What inspires me the most is when art works in harmony with nature.” www.jeffreygardens.blogspot.com.

Sandy Masuo is an editor, a writer, and an inveterate plant nerd and persistent citizen scientist. Gardening is her passion and succulents are an obsession. Sandy served as associate editor in the publications division of the Los Angeles Zoo. She also co-edits the Association for Zoological Horticulture (AZH) newsletter. From 2010 to 2014, she served on the SCHS Board, continues to manage the SCHS Facebook page, and intermittently contributes to the SCHS newsletter

CHRISTOPHER LEE WASSENBERG is Director of the Leaning Pine Arboretum and a lecturer in the Horticulture and Crop Science Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Christopher received his Bachelors degree in Environmental Horticulture and his Masters degree in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Administration at Cal Poly. He teaches students about arboriculture, California native plants, landscape maintenance and construction, and public garden management.

NANCY SWEARENGEN has been an active leader in the International Mediterranean Garden Society since the early 1990s. As a staff member at University California Botanical Garden she specialized in interpreting botanical and natural history subjects and programming field trips and study tours throughout the West. Nancy is a Berkeley native and a member of the Pacific Horticulture office staff.

PAULA HENSON is a water conservationist, landscape designer, writer, and educator. Her company Terra Bella Water promotes water education and provides water awareness presentations for anyone from preschoolers to homeowners. She has been designed award-winning rainwater harvesting systems and landscapes in the Los Angeles area and is an EPA Watershed Wise Landscape Professional and an ARCSA (American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association) Accredited Professional.

Marty Wingate is the Seattle-based author of the soon-to-be-released murder mystery The Garden Plot (Alibi, 2014), about an American gardener in England—read a free excerpt at www.scribd.com/doc/204912698/The-Garden-Plot-by-Marty-Wingate-Excerpt. She also wrote Perennials for the Pacific Northwest (Sasquatch Books) and Landscaping for Privacy (Timber Press). Hear her on the podcast “A Dry Rain”, available free through iTunes. More at: www.martywingate.com.