Virginia Hayes is Curator of the Living Collection at Ganna Walska Lotusland in Santa Barbara, California, where she is responsible for maintaining plant records for the extensive plant collections. Virginia holds a Master’s degree from University California Santa Barbara where she did research on the unique floral characters of lotuses (Nelumbo nucifera) and their variation among wild populations. She writes a popular gardening column for the Santa Barbara Independent and contributes to other California and national publications.

Gayle Richardson is chair of the NPA Seed Exchange, based in the Seattle area. She is currently coddling seedlings of Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigrescens’ and Paradisea liliastrum and can be reached at seeds@northwestperennialalliance.org.

Nanette Londeree, garden writer and Master Gar-dener, serves on the board of the Marin Art & Garden Center. This life-long gardener is now immersed in her primary passion— horticulture—working in her Marin County garden, coaching others with their gardens, and developing garden education programs for all ages.

Emily Griswold is assistant director of horticulture at the UC Davis Arboretum and leads a volunteer effort to renovate the demonstration gardens in Davis Central Park.

EARL NICKEL is an Oakland-based horticulturist, writer, and photographer. He writes a weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle profiling garden-worthy plants and has contributed feature articles to Pacific Horticulture, Fine Gardening, and various Bay Area newspapers. Erle maintains a large and varied garden and blogs for Annie’s Annuals and at www.normsnursery.blogspot.com.

Charlotte Torgovitsky is a naturalist and amateur lepidopterist who loves to garden, both at home in Novato, California, and at the Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross, where she is the sustainable garden resources and outreach manager. As garden education manager at the Center, she has created habitat gardens, a plant nursery, and extensive educational programs for both children and adults.

Richie Steffen is curator of horticulture for the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanical Garden in Seattle, where he manages the rare plant collections and leads the acquisition of new plants. Richie is co-author of The Plant Lover’s Guide to Ferns from Timber Press. He is an active member of numerous horticultural societies in the area and lectures widely about garden-worthy plants.

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.

Rebecca Sams and Buell Steelman met while both worked at Gardens in Austin, Texas. Now in Eugene, Oregon, they design and build cutting-edge gardens as Mosaic Gardens (www.mosaic-gardens.com).

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.

Marie Barnidge-McIntyre is the staff horticulturist for Rancho Los Cerritos in Long Beach, California, and did the majority of the research on trees for the restoration of the historic orchard there. She also operates Gardens by Design, a consulting firm, from her home in Thousand Oaks, California.

Mary Wilbur, a native of Wales, worked in the field of psychiatric care, and has gardened in England and New York. She is now active with the Greater Trinidad Garden Club in Trinidad, California, where she has lived and gardened for more than a decade.

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