Pam Peirce is a San Francisco-based gardener, author, photographer, and lecturer. The 4^th (30^th Anniversary) edition classic regional gardening book, Golden Gate Gardening, has just been published. It teaches year-round food gardening in mediterranean California from Eureka to San Luis Obispo, from the foggy coast to hot inland climates like Walnut Creek or San Jose. Her book Wildly Successful Plants covers botany and use of 50 plucky, historic, mid-California ornamentals. Pam earned a BA in plant science, taught horticulture at City College of San Francisco for nearly 30 years, lectures and writes widely on gardening and food issues. You can follow her future appearances on her website: pampeirce.com, which also provides a link to her blog.

Jeff Lowenfels is a garden writer and attorney in Alaska, and a leading proponent of gardening using the concepts of the soil food web. Wayne Lewis is a lifelong Alaskan gardener who has worked with Jeff on many projects, including the national Plant a Row for the Hungry program, which was started in Anchorage by Jeff.

Carolyn Doepke Bennett, a writer and lecturer on garden conservation and garden design, is actively involved with The Garden Conservancy and serves as a Trustee of The Los Angeles County Arboretum Foundation. A landscape historian on the staff of Nancy Goslee Power & Associates, she also coordinates the Barn Studio Lecture Series.

Michael Curto is a senior research associate of the Earth and Soil Sciences Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Over the past three decades, his interests and experience have focused on the systematics, geography, and ecology of western North American grasses.

David Fross is one of Southern California’s most highly respected native plant specialists and co-author with Bart O’Brien and Carol Bornstein of California Native Plants for the Garden (Cachuma Press, 2006).  David is the owner of Native Sons Wholesale Nursery in Arroyo Grande.

Steve Brigham and his wife Donna are the proprietors of Buena Creek Gardens, located in San Marcos in northern San Diego County. Steve is a founder of the San Diego Horticultural Society. Both have been active in the nursery industry in California for several decades.

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.

Phil Wood, owner of Phil Wood Garden Design, enjoys working with homeowners to create expressive gardens that emphasize plants and designs appropriate to the Pacific Northwest. A graduate of the landscape architecture program at the University of Washington, he writes about garden design for the Seattle Times.

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.

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.

Panayoti Kelaidis is a plant explorer, garden writer, and public garden administrator who is currently director of outreach at Denver Botanic Gardens. He loves anything with chlorophyll, especially South African alpines, bulbs, succulents and Western American steppe plants, particularly Penstemon, Eriogonum, and all manner of Asteraceae.