Mark Bourne’s training in Kyoto included building new gardens and pruning in many of Japan’s most famous gardens, including Kenninji. He is a garden designer on the San Francisco Peninsula, and writes about gardens, design, and reading the patterns of the natural world at windsmithdesign.com.
Casey Lyon, founder of Habitat Gardens, is a leading expert in native gardens and green roof technologies. He trained at California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo in horticulture with a focus on restoration ecology. He has won several awards for his living roofs and has had his gardens featured in Garden Design and Gardens Illustrated.
Bob Wigand is a freelance photographer, specializing in garden photography in the greater San Diego area. His images have appeared in numerous publications, but his passion is with capturing images of nature and wildlife throughout the southwest. He resides in San Marcos, California with Judy, his wife and travel companion.
Ann Northrup spent her undergraduate years at the University of Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in microbiology. Her interest in plant pathology started there, but she took a five-year diversion to work in the field of medical diagnostics at Bio Rad Labs in Richmond, California, and another two years as a molecular biology research assistant at UC Irvine. Returning to plant pathology, Ann earned a master’s degree UC Berkeley. She has worked primarily in disease diagnostics of ornamental plants, first with Soil and Plant Lab in Orange, California, and then with Nurserymen’s Exchange in Half Moon Bay.
Ann currently consults privately in plant pathology and arboriculture and teaches horticulture classes at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills and Merritt College in Oakland. One of her professional pleasures is volunteering at the Sick Plant Clinic. She is also an active volunteer in the UCCE Master Gardener program for Santa Clara County. In her spare time, she enjoys playing her flute in a woodwind quintet in Saratoga and with the Saratoga Community Band conducted by her husband. And of course … she gardens.
Matthew V Maggio has been passionate about horticulture from his childhood days in the vegetable garden through an educational process both formal and informal. With a degree from Cal Poly in his pocket, he has launched a career in Southern California as nurseryman and landscape designer, focusing on succulent plants.
Elizabeth Navas Finley has written on gardening, design, and horticulture for the San Francisco Chronicle and numerous magazines. A garden designer and Marin Master Gardener, she has been involved with the gardens at Falkirk Cultural Center for the past five years.
Rob Lee came to gardening through composting and a love of coastal conifers. Tiring of the challenges of a sand-dune garden in San Francisco, he moved to Portland, Oregon, where he now pursues writing and art photography—in a darkroom! (roblee43@gmail.com)
Rainie Fross, a co-owner of Native Sons Nursery, is a technical writer whose garden essays can be found at https://nativeson.typepad.com/rainies_corner/; others have been published in Garden Compass. She has been negotiating her garden’s evolution for thirty-two years.
Puck Erickson is a landscape architect and co-founder of Arcadia Studio (www.arcadiastudio.com), a team of landscape professionals with offices in Santa Barbara, California and Phoenix, Arizona. A resident of Santa Ynez Valley for many years, Puck has gardened since childhood and thrills at the opportunity to put client, site, and plants together in a sustainable landscape.
