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. He is an active member of numerous horticultural societies in the area and lectures widely about garden-worthy plants.
Debra Lee Baldwin is an award-winning garden writer for Sunset magazine and other publications. Her new book, Designing with Succulents (Timber Press, 2007) has become one of the top ten best selling garden books in America. She lives and gardens in Escondido, in northern San Diego County. Visit her at www.debraleebaldwin.com.
Kirsten DeLara is a freelance writer who specializes in Mediterranean gardening, European travel, architecture, and the environment. Her work has appeared in local, regional, and international publications. An avid gardener and member of the Garden Writers Association of America, she resides in Seattle when not traveling in France.
Craig Latker attended the University of California at Davis and Berkeley, receiving a degree in Landscape Architecture from Berkeley in 1983. He has over 20 years experience working as a landscape designer.
He has worked at a large interior landscape installation company and a boutique landscape design firm specializing in large estates and country homes. Seven years ago he founded Latker Design Solutions, where he specializes in residential projects of varying size. Craig has expertise in a wide range of design styles — from classic Provencal and English cottage, to mid-century modern, to ultra contemporary.
Craig is also a professional illustrator and designer, and has done work for non-profit organizations and publications such as Pacific Horticulture, the Nature Conservancy, Strybing Arboretum, and the University of California at Davis.
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.
Iain M Robertson has taught at the University of Washington for over twenty years. His interests include plants as a design medium, human experiences of landscape designs, and urban ecological design. He has practiced as a landscape architect in his native Scotland and on the East and West coasts, and has consulted with several Western arboreta and botanic gardens.
Frederique Lavoipierre is the volunteer manager at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden. She also teaches classes and workshops on many aspects of sustainable landscaping, including ecological principles, habitat gardens, beneficial insects, soil ecology, fresh-water ecology, and aquatic invertebrates.
Judith M Taylor, a retired Oxford-trained neurologist, now practices history without a license in San Francisco. She has published several books, most recently The Global Migrations of Ornamental Plants: How the World Got into Your Garden (2009). The begonia story is part of a future book on plant breeders and their obsessions.
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.
Bart O’Brien is one of Southern California’s most highly respected native plant specialists and co-author with David Fross and Carol Bornstein of California Native Plants for the Garden (Cachuma Press, 2006). Bart is director of special projects at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Claremont.
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.