Susan Bouchez is an artist and designer who gardens in Los Altos, California and Savoie, France. She has been an active UCCE Master Gardener volunteer in the Santa Clara Valley chapter since 1999.

Saul Wiseman, president of the Perennial Plant Club of Sacramento, writes a weekly gardening column for the Auburn Journal/Roseville Press Tribune in Placer County. He is the Sacramento regional representative for The Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program.

Ellen Hoffs, for most of her life, was a journalist who gardened. She competed a horticulture program and became a gardener who wrote for publications such as, Horticulture magazine and the Los Angeles Times. She is currently Assistant Editor and Director of Marketing, Marymount Institute Press and Tsehai Publishers, Loyola Marymount University.

Robert D Raabe is Professor Emeritus of Plant Pathology at University of California, Berkeley. He introduced a faster method of composting was commonly known as the “Berkeley method” or “fast composting”, this method produces finished compost in as little as 14 to 21 days. He is also the author of The Ortho Home Gardener’s Problem Solver.

Derick Pitman works with the San Francisco Botanical Gardens at Strybing Arboretum to introduce new Impatiens species into cultivation. Founder of the International Impatiens Society and creator of an educational website, www.mrimpatiens.com, he is an avid and passionate collector and promoter of Impatiens and other perennials for the garden.

Frederique Lavoipierre is the creator and author of “Garden Allies,” a series that ran for 10 years in Pacific Horticulture magazine. She also teaches classes and workshops on sustainable landscaping, including ecological principles, habitat gardens, beneficial insects, soil ecology, freshwater ecology, and aquatic invertebrates. Follow her on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/Garden.Allies.

Douglas Justice is associate director and curator of collections at UBC Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he indulges his passion for maples and other trees. He teaches and writes on a variety of plant related topics, and is actively involved with local, national, and international botanical and horticulture organizations.

Diane Cary is communications director at the UC Davis Arboretum, a researcher in the Landscape Architecture program at UC Davis, and an independent curator and arts programmer.

Neil Bell is a horticulturist with the Oregon State University Extension Service in Marion and Polk Counties, where he oversees the Master Gardener program. He researches the hardiness of woody plants for western Oregon with a particular interest in evergreen and mediterranean climate genera.

Kathy Musial is curator of living collections at the Huntington Botanical Gardens where she has worked for more than twenty-five years. She serves on the board of directors of Pacific Horticultural Society, leads tours for the Society, and is a collaborator on the soon-to-be-published Conifers around the World.

Richard G Turner Jr is the editor emeritus of Pacific Horticulture. After receiving degrees in architecture and landscape architecture from the University of Michigan more than thirty years ago, he escaped to California, where he has worked in the fields of garden design, public garden education and administration, and garden publishing. His small, chemical-free San Francisco garden provides habitat for wildlife while serving as a test ground for mediterranean-climate plants.

Ellen Zagory is director of horticulture at the UC Davis Arboretum, where she frequently lectures on bringing wildlife into the garden.

Ray Collett is the founder and director emeritus of the Arboretum at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he was responsible for developing the extensive Australian Collection. Among his many interests are the Australian fuchsias (Correa spp.), of which he has introduced several named selections to the nursery trade.