director, Bloedel Reserve
Bainbridge Island, Washington

Jill Vig is a master gardener, certified arborist, and curator of the Water Conservation Garden at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. She is also an instructor at the Arboretum and has taught classes on design, horticultural basics, hedges, trees, and mediterranean-climate gardening.

Being a lifelong student of nature, as well as a dedicated gardener for most of my life, has enabled me to “bridge the worlds of gardening and ecology” in order to promote a “new paradigm in landscaping.”

In 2018 I officially founded Home Ground Habitats, but the concept has been a passion project of mine for more than 20 years. Home Ground Habitats is a non-profit, community-minded organization that maintains a native plant nursery and demonstration gardens on Indian Valley Road in Novato, California.

With the help of a robust group of volunteers, we grow about 150 different species of both California natives and other compatible, drought-tolerant plants. Our demonstration gardens help gardeners choose the “right plant for the right place.” Home Ground donates more plants than we sell to support school and community gardens and habitat restoration projects. We invite groups to come on field trips, offer hands-on classes, and, this last summer, offered the first children’s garden camps program.

I am also an educator; I was the Garden Education Manager at Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross; I taught hands-on home composting for the Zero Waste Marin initiative and Plant Propagation classes for the Marin Resource Conservation District. Marin Water hired me to consult on a booklet The Watershed Approach to Landscaping, which is now the textbook for a series of classes I teach at the College of Marin for adult community education.

Susan Carter is a garden designer and avid plants person. She is involved in the ongoing maintenance of the Borders and are active with the Northwest Perennial Alliance.

Carrie Becker is a professional gardener, designer, consultant, and educator. Carrie and Bob Lilly are two of the original designers of the NPA Borders at the Bellevue Botanical Garden; and she is involved in the ongoing maintenance of the Borders and are active with the Northwest Perennial Alliance.

Bob Lilly is one of the original designers of the Northwest Perennial Alliance Borders at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. By day, he is a sales representative for several major nurseries in the Pacific Northwest. He also maintains the gardens at the houseboat community where he lives on Lake Union.

Kathy Kreiger is a garden writer who has loved roses since cutting a childhood neighbor’s dark red, heavily fragrant roses. She is currently editing a collection of garden pieces from her newspaper days, volunteering at the San Jose Heritage Rose Garden, annoying fellow rosarian Bill Grant, and planting even more roses.

Nancy Morin serves on the board of Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens and works on the Flora of North America project from her home in Point Arena, California. A plant taxonomist, she has worked at Missouri Botanical Garden, the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, and the Arboretum at Flagstaff.

Diane S Laird is a former president of the Northwest Horticulture Society and currently serves on the board of the Pacific Northwest Horticultural Conservancy and the board of the newly formed Puget Sound Chapter of the Mediterranean Garden Society. She gardens on a tiny lot in Seattle.