Molly Barker

Molly Barker is the Executive Director of Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens.


Melissa Hung

Melissa Hung is a San Francisco-based writer whose essays and reported stories about culture, race, and immigration have appeared in NPR, Vogue, and Pacific Standard.


Lester B. Rowntree

Lester B. Rowntree is the grandson of Lester Rowntree (1879-1979) who pioneered the study, propagation, and conservation of California native plants.


Rowan A. Rowntree

Rowan A. Rowntree is the grandson of Lester Rowntree (1879-1979) who pioneered the study, propagation, and conservation of California native plants.


Leigh Adams

LEIGH ADAMS is Artist in Residence at Los Angeles County Arboretum where she serves as a design consultant to the Arboretum Foundation. A former children’s librarian and outdoor education teacher, Leigh is passionate about providing learners of all ages the opportunity to explore and acquire new skills. Leigh’s connection to public art, watershed management, and adaptive education inform her approach to each new garden project.


Lucy Tolmach

Lucy Tolmach worked at Filoli for 35 years beginning as a gardener in the walled garden before moving on to director of horticulture. She and her husband, Jonathan, have recently relocated to their family’s land in Ojai, California. In addition to planting a large fruit and vegetable garden and caring for the land, they’re excited by the opportunity to bake bread, keep chickens, ducks, pigeons, doves and possibly peacocks, and work in the family winery.  Lucy plans to turn her attention to designing gardens and planting daffodils.


Saxon Holt

Saxon Holt is a professional garden photographer who contributes regularly to Pacific Horticulture and is widely published in books such as Hardy SucculentsThe American Meadow Garden, and Plants and Landscapes for the Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Area. Saxon lives and gardens in Novato, California and is a member of the PHS board of directors. www.photobotanic.com


Daniel Mount

https://www.mountgardens.com

Daniel Mount hails from a long line of wandering gardeners, nurserymen and farmers.  He received his first shovel for his second birthday and began his gardening career in the sand box later that afternoon. Spending most of his youthful summers in a vegetable patch, on a farm, in parks, or in the woods, the curiosity of a scientist and the soul of a poet were awakened in him. Daniel went on to study fine arts and botany at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, from which he received a BS in Botany.

Drawn to the legendary gardening climate of the Pacific Northwest, Daniel moved to Seattle, Washington in 1988. Since that time he has created, maintained and consulted on gardens primarily in the Puget Sound Basin. The skills he acquired working in the passionate gardening environment of  Pacific Northwest have opened many doors. Daniel was invited to Cologne, Germany, where he worked on urban rooftop and courtyard gardens as well as rural estates. He was next called to Orto dei Semplici Elbano on the Island of Elba, Italy where he collected and designed with the unique flora of this island.  He maintains an ancillary connection to this garden to this day. Closer to home he has consulted on projects and designed gardens in and around Durham, North Carolina; Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Phoenix, Arizona.

Daniel has settled on a small farm nestled in a 150-acre bird sanctuary, which he shares with his partner, innumerable slugs and a bear, in the Snoqualmie River Valley east of Seattle. He enjoys growing organic vegetables and fruits, raising ducks and experimenting with flood tolerant plants. He creates gardens and also teaches and writes about plants and gardening.

www.mountgardens.com


Debra Prinzing

https://www.debraprinzing.com

Debra Prinzing is an award-winning author, speaker, and a leading advocate for American-grown flowers. She is the creator of Slowflowers.com, a free online directory that helps consumers find florists, designers, studios, and farms that supply American grown flowers. Debra is the producer and host of the Slow Flowers Podcast with Debra Prinzing, which is available for free download on iTunes or at www.debraprinzing.com.


Frederique Lavoipierre

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.