SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
for The Late Show Gardens 2009

Jeffrey Bale

A designer and builder of intimate and highly detailed gardens for over 20 years, Jeffrey Bale is known mainly for his work with stone and pebble mosaics. A graduate in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon, he opted to work 'hands on' rather than in an office.  The gardens he designs are intended to be works of art that inspire and nurture clients and provide a tangible connection between people and nature, the vernacular of place, and the cosmos.  Design work is usually done on site to create a tailored space that is refined and sensual, a place as beautiful as anywhere on Earth. Self taught in the art of stone work, he also collaborates with other artists in the mediums of carpentry and steel for the structural elements in his projects.

Extensive World travel has heavily influenced his work, including 12 winters exploring Asia and 11 in South America. "This is a magical planet that we live on and what we do should honor and enhance it in a real way. My intention is to manifest an Earthly and Heavenly paradise through the gardens that I build."  Jeffrey has written for Fine Gardening and Landscape Architecture Magazines and his work has been featured in numerous gardening publications.

www.jeffreygardens.com

Images from past projects

Lecture:
How to build Paradise
How the beauty of the World has inspired my work
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 11:00 a.m.

Sponsored by:

Beatrice Bowles believes that “stories grow gardens inside us, providing wisdom and delight.  Classic stories have lasting power to keep young minds aware of the greatness and the fragility of the nature we all share.” 

Beatrice heads Harmony Hill Productions which creates storytelling CDs and storybooks of classic myths and wonder tales for children.  Spark Catchers--her latest CD--won NAPPA’s (National Association of Parenting Publications) Honors Award and was featured on Boston Fox TV 25 as one of the top spoken word recordings for children of 2008. 

Beatrice has twenty-five years of experience in telling stories that thrill young audiences and reveal surprising similarities between diverse traditions.  Mythologist Joseph Campbell served as advisor on her first recording, a collection of creation stories for NPR’s New Dimensions Radio.  She wrote about her San Francisco garden in “Secret Gardens” by Rosemary Verey, and has been written about in “The Gardens of San Francisco” by Joan Hockaday, and in Town & Country, Country Living, California Home & Design, the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, and other publications.  She is a Fellow of the Garden Conservancy and a member of the Advisory Board of the San Francisco Botanical Garden.

www.harmonyhill.com

Lecture:
Guess What Grows in Heaven's Gardens?
Stories of Magical Apples, Peaches & Pomegranates 
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 11:00 a.m. (in Topher Delaney’s Garden)

Marion Brenner's photographs have appeared in numerous books and magazines, including House & Garden, Martha Stewart Living, House Beautiful, Landscape Architecture, The New York Times, Elle Décor, Garden Design and Sunset Magazine. Her series on the aftermath of the Oakland Fire is in the Bancroft Library Collection at UC Berkeley. In 1992, she collaborated with landscape designer Topher Delaney on a series of cards featuring plants used to treat cancer, which won an American Society of Landscape Architects Graphics Award. With the writer Diana Ketcham, she received a grant from the Graham Foundation to photograph eighteenth century English-style folly gardens in France. In 2002, the Berkeley Museum hosted her one-person show entitled, "The Subtle Life of Plants and People". Marion’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the SFMOMA and the Berkeley Art Museum. New Garden Design, a book of her photographs, was published last year. 

www.marionbrenner.com

Images from past projects

Lecture:
A changing aesthetic - gardens, politics and culture
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 12:00 Noon

Sponsored by:

Topher Delaney’s thirty year career as an environmental artist has encompassed a wide breadth of projects which focus on the exploration of our cultural interpretations of landscape architecture, site installation, and public art. Her practice, SEAM Studio, has evolved from a traditional landscape architectural structure to an atelier which serves as a venue for the investigation of cultural, social and artistic narratives “seamed” together to form dynamic physical installations.

Rather than subscribing to typological categorization, Ms. Delaney’s projects place an emphasis on the integration of physical form with narratives referencing the currency of a site’s unique historical, cultural, physical and environmental profiles. The text of the terrain is evidenced in the structure of these narratives, crafted by technical skill and quality of materials to create a site which will be read and interpreted by the general public.

Ms. Delaney received her Bachelor of Arts in Landscape Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley after studying philosophy and cultural anthropology vat Barnard College. She has been widely published and authored Ten Landscapes: Topher Delaney (Rockport Press, June 2001). Ms. Delaney has received numerous awards and honors for her studio’s installations, which seek to balance the aesthetics of art and the literal pragmatics of the garden.

SEAM Studio is presently represented by Dunkirk Showrooms, installations are accessible through the Gardens @ Cornerstone Sonoma “Garden Play” + U.C. Berkeley Extension Gallery “Westward Ho!”

www.tdelaney.com

Images from past projects

Lecture:
Intention + Attention
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 11:00 a.m.

Sponsored by:

Ken Druse has published text and photographs in articles for nearly every gardening and decorating magazine in the US. Ken can be seen in TV appearances, heard on radio and on his own weekly public radio show and "Podcast" - Ken Druse REAL DIRT (with New Jersey-based columnist Vicki Johnson) — is downloaded to computers and iPods all over the world. Ken's free electronic newsletter has subscribers in 27 countries.

But he is perhaps best known for his books on gardening including the best sellers The Natural Shade Garden (now in its 12th printing), The Collector's Garden, The Natural Habitat Garden and Making More Plants: The Science, Art, and Joy of Propagation, which received top honors: "Award of the Year" from the Garden Writers Association. The American Horticultural Society chose his book, The Passion for Gardening, as best book of 2003; and the Wall Street Journal recommended it as one of the "five garden books to own."

In 2004, Ken received a medal for lifetime achievement from the Garden Club of America.

Ken's latest book - PLANTHROPOLOGY: The Myths, Mysteries and Miracles of My Garden Favorites - out now — delivers an entirely original spin with surprising stories about the plants we know and love.

www.kendruse.com

Lecture:
Garden Art May be the Best Revenge
(From da Vinci to Duquette)
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 1:00 p.m.

Valerie Easton hasn’t missed a week of writing her “Plant Life” column for Pacific Northwest Magazine of The Seattle Times in the last twelve years. Her popular blog “Plant Talk” can be found at www.valeaston.com. She contributes articles on gardens, homes, and the people who make them to numerous publications, including Garden Design and Metropolitan Home. Her latest book, due out in October from Timber Press, is The New Low Maintenance Garden:  How To Have a Beautiful, Productive Garden and the Time to Enjoy It.  She’s the author of three other books including A Pattern Garden: The Essential Elements of Garden Making. 

Valerie lectures widely for garden shows and plant societies, as well as teaching writing workshops. She comes to garden from eighteen years as a horticultural librarian at the University of Washington, Master Gardener training and a lifetime of gardening. Valerie lives in Seattle and on Whidbey Island, where she’s made a new, smaller, low maintenance garden in the town of Langley. Her new garden has been published in the New York Times, the Dec/Jan 2007 issue of Horticulture, and the July/August 2008 issue of This Old House. 

www.valeaston.com

Lecture:
The Simplified Garden: How to Create a Productive, Stylish, Eco-Friendly Garden and Still Have the Time to Enjoy It
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Dave Egbert is a professional plantsman and firefighter with a wide knowledge of plants and sustainable practices.  Dave has learned from the top experts of horticulture to appreciate the value of well-chosen plants for every climate and situation.  He strives to incorporate ideals of organic and sustainable gardening to his own garden and instill these values in gardens he creates and talks for the public.

Dave is an active member of his rural Big Sur community.  He balances his time in the garden and on the air with TV’s Garden Travels and CRN/CBS Radio Living Green Radio with community service as a volunteer firefighter with the Big Sur Fire Brigade. 

www.firesafegarden.com

Images from past projects

Lecture:
The Fire Safe Sustainable Garden
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 3:00 p.m.

Mike Evans was born and raised in southern California and demonstrated an early love for the outdoors.  He worked with several nurseries both retail and wholesale, before establishing Tree of Life Nursery in 1976.  Tree of Life Nursery specializes in native California plants and promotes a style of authentic horticulture, specifically the concept of appropriate landscaping with native California plants. 

Mike is affiliated with numerous conservation, horticultural and botanical organizations.  He is past president (2005) of the International Plant Propagators Society, and past president (2001) of the California Society for Ecological Restoration.  Mike was involved in water conservation during the 1980’s as a founding member of the Xeriscape committee through Metropolitan Water District.  In addition, he has been active in the California Native Plant Society, the California Botanical Society, and The Nature Conservancy.  He served on the horticultural committee for The Jepson Manual project, the definitive California flora published in 1993.

Mike is one of the original board members on the Donna O’Neill Land Conservancy in San Juan Capistrano.  He also serves on the boards for Casa Romantica Cultural Center in San Clemente, and the San Juan Capistrano Historical Society.  With his experience in native plant production, design, landscaping, and ecological restoration, Mike Evans advocates a California that deserves to look like the true “California.”  Mike often is called on to write or lecture on the subject.  His hobbies include hiking, surfing, photography, reading and writing.  He serves as pastor of a Spanish language Christian church in San Juan Capistrano.

Mike is president of Tree of Life Nursery.  In 2007, the nursery was honored to receive the Horticultural Award from the California Native Plant Society and the California Glory Award presented by the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.  The nursery website provides information on the use of native plants in the garden and its catalog, entitled “Plants of El Camino Real,” is used as a planning tool for horticultural professionals and garden enthusiasts working with native plants.

www.CaliforniaNativePlants.com

Lecture:
Engage
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Tom Fischer is editor-in-chief at Timber Press in Portland, Oregon. He got his start in book publishing at the University of Chicago Press and Beacon Press, and spent 14 years on the editorial staff Horticulture magazine in Boston before moving to Portland in 2004. His experiences as a bi-coastal gardener and his inexhaustible curiosity about plants have both shaped his new garden, which in 2008 was profiled in the Oregonian. A prolific writer as well as an editor, his articles have been featured in magazines such as Garden Design, Gardens Illustrated, and Martha Stewart Living. His book, Perennial Companions: 100 Dazzling Plant Combinations for Every Season, was published by Timber Press in February 2009. He recently launched a website, OverPlanted.com.

www.overplanted.com

Lecture:
Caliterranean: Low-Water Gardening with a Mediterranean/Californian Plant Palette
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 3:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Patricia Glick (Patty) is Senior Global Warming Specialist at the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). She has been dedicated to the issue of climate change for more than 18 years and has played an important role in educating a diverse constituency of Americans about the issue, as well as developing and promoting meaningful policy solutions. For the past eleven years, Ms. Glick has been instrumental in helping NWF build a targeted grassroots global warming campaign, recognizing the critical importance of bringing the issue of global warming "home" to people in order to galvanize them toward action. Much of her work has focused on translating the science of global warming and its impacts on fish and wildlife into creative and understandable outreach tools, including the award-winning Gardener's Guide to Global Warming. She has also led major research studies on the impacts of sea-level rise on U.S. coastal habitats, including major areas of Florida, the Pacific Northwest, and the Chesapeake Bay region and has participated in several governor-appointed working groups to develop state-based climate change adaptation strategies. In 2007, Ms. Glick was one of 23 women around the world named as "An outstanding woman working on climate change issues" by The World Conservation Union (IUCN), and she was recognized by The Wildlife Society as "Today's Wildlife Professional" in The Wildlife Professional, Fall 2008.

Lecture:
The Gardener's Guide to Global Warming: Challenges and Solutions
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.

Sponsored by:

Roger Gossler is one of the owners of Gossler farms nursery in Springfield, Oregon. The nursery has operated for over four decades and has been a source for rare and unusual plants throughout the US and Europe throughout this time. The nursery is simply an extension of Roger's personal passion for woody plants in the garden and the nursery has been his conduit for the introduction of many new cultivars to the gardening public. Over the years Roger has introduced a number of well-known plants to the industry and consumers. Some of these include Magnolia stelatta Rosea 'Jane Platt', Schizostyllis 'Oregon Sunset', Fothergilla gardinia 'Jane Platt' and many other exciting offerings now seen as standards at many nurseries. We are also excited to announce the publication of Roger's first book, Gossler's Guide to Hardy Shrubs published by Timber Press of Portland, Oregon and New York. Roger has also designed and maintained a display garden at the nursery of over five acres that is open to anyone who visits the nursery. Roger is also currently involved in the design phase of a new public garden at the Oregon Garden project in Silverton, Oregon.

www.gosslerfarms.com

Lecture:
Shrubs for the Northern California Garden
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 4:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Martin Grantham, born and raised in Santa Clara Valley as its sea of orchards transformed into a technological hub, studied botany at UC Davis and Mycology at UC Berkeley. He lives in Emeryville, CA, works for San Francisco State as Biology Dept. Greenhouse Manager and at UC Santa Cruz Arboretum as a Garden Scholar. He has taught plant propagation courses at community colleges in the East Bay and San Francisco, and workshops for UC, San Francisco, and East Bay Parks Botanical Gardens. Current and long standing interests include the floras of western South Africa and the Andean region of So. America, as well as ceramic sculpture and writing.

Lecture:
Deep Flora: Exploring South Africa's Botanical Treasure Trove
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 12:00 Noon

Mark Hertsgaard is the author of five books that have been translated into sixteen languages, including Earth Odyssey: Around the World In Search of Our Environmental Future. He has reported and written about climate change for twenty years for such publications as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Die Zeit and many others at home and abroad. He is the environment correspondent for The Nation and a columnist for L'espresso in Italy. He is a frequent contributor to public radio and television broadcasts, including Marketplace and The World, and is the political correspondent for the national satellite channel, Link TV. He has taught writing at Johns Hopkins and UC Berkeley. A fellow of the Open Society Institute, he recently traveled to China and western Africa to research his forthcoming book, Living Through the Storm: How Humanity Can Survive the Next 50 Years of Climate Change.

www.markhertsgaard.com

Lecture:
Gardening Under Global Warming
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 1:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Sean Hogan started in the nursery industry at the age of 3, rooting boxwood cuttings and succulents in the sandbox of his boyhood home in Portland Oregon. His family later moved to Sacramento where he pursued his education at American River College and Sacramento State in the areas of horticulture and botany. Early work included mapping rare and endangered plants, mostly Cactaceae and Portulacaceae, for the State of California as well as landscape and design work often revolving around his love of western natives.

From the mid-80’s to the mid-90’s, Hogan served as Curator of the South African, New Zealand, Australian, New Work Desert, and the California Native Cultivar Gardens of the University of California, Berkeley, Botanic Garden.

In 1995 he and his partner, UC Davis Arboretum Botanist Parker Sanders, returned to Portland, starting a design and consultation firm specializing in regionally appropriate plants for the Pacific Northwest. This work eventually evolved into the opening of Cistus Design and Nursery.

Hogan has lectured extensively in North America and Europe, often about his explorations in South America, South Africa, and the western regions of the United States and northern Mexico. His writing and photographs can be found in a wide range of horticultural and botanical literature and magazines. He edited the 20,000 plus entry Flora, published by Timber Press in October 2003, and his most recent book, Trees for All Seasons: Broadleaved Evergreens for Temperate Climates.

Lecture:
Planting Within Our Means: Native and Drought Tolerant Plants - 
The New "In Thing"
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 4:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Bob Hornback is the owner of Muchas Grasses, specializing in plant brokerage, consultation and design with ornamental grasses. He is a popular garden writer and speaker, and teaches Horticulture at campuses throughout the Bay area.

Lecture:
What’s with the Climate Already?
A Gardener Looks for Solutions
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.

David Mason’s horticultural career began in 1961 as an apprentice for 6 years in Harrogate Parks, North Yorkshire, and then for 2 more years as a student at RHS Wisley in Surrey.  After a brief visit to Pennsylvania, and a couple of years at a prominent English nursery, he went on to RBG Kew to their Wakehurst Place satellite in Sussex as Gardens Supervisor for 7 years.  He was then Manager for almost 10 years of Longstock Park in Hampshire, famous for its water gardens.  In 1989 he moved to Los Angeles to manage a nursery but ended up designing and installing private gardens for 5 years.

Fifteen years ago, along with wife Susie, Hedgerows Nursery was born in a field S.W. of McMinnville in Oregon. The nursery specializes in what 'they like', which means a wide range of plants. Over the years they have introduced many new plants from the U.K. Dave’s other activities involve travels, primarily on the 'left coast' consulting on and designing private gardens.

Along the way he co-authored a book on water gardening, traveled, collecting seed in the Himalaya and Europe and is a keen photographer of all things natural.  His horticultural career may have to continue!

Lecture:
"It doesn't always rain in Oregon!" 
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 11:00 a.m.

Sponsored by:

Bart O'Brien is Director of Special Projects at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden (RSABG) in Claremont, CA, an educational institution dedicated to research, conservation, and horticulture of California native plants. Bart is also editor of Fremontia, the journal of the California Native Plant Society (CNPS). A fifth generation Californian, he is an authority on the native flora of the state and of northern Baja California, Mexico and is an accomplished collector, grower, photographer, lecturer, and author. He is co-author of two books: the award winning California Native Plants for the Garden (with Carol Bornstein of Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and David Fross of Native Sons Nursery) published by Cachuma Press; and the bilingual Care & Maintenance of Southern California Native Plant Gardens – Cuidado y mantenimiento de jardines de plantas nativas del sur de California (with Betsey Landis of CNPS and Ellen Mackey of Theodore Payne Foundation) published by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. His ongoing work with the rivers of Los Angeles County resulted in the collaborative publication of the Los Angeles River Master Plan Landscaping Guidelines and Plant Palettes for the LA County Department of Public Works in 2004, and his Plant Lists for the San Gabriel River Watershed for the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy in 2007. He was named Horticulturist of the Year in 2005 by the Southern California Horticultural Society. O’Brien was listed as one of “The 100 Most Powerful People in Southern California” by the editorial staff of the Los Angeles Times/West Magazine (Aug. 13, 2006).

He is currently working on two book projects: one, with coauthors Bornstein and Fross, on alternatives to lawns, and the other is editing a manuscript on the propagation of California native plants at RSABG from 1950 to 1970. He is also currently leading the rare, endangered, and endemic vascular plants of northwestern Baja California, Mexico project (funded by the Jiji Foundation), and is in the process of evaluating and introducing a series of new evergreen hybrid shrubs (Chiranthofremontia lenzii selections) for California gardens and landscapes (funded by the Saratoga Horticultural Research Endowment of the University of California).

www.rsabg.org

Lecture:
Bringing California Home:
Gardening With the Senses
Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

Richard G. Turner, Jr. is a garden designer, educator, writer, photographer, and tour leader, having studied architecture and landscape architecture at the University of Michigan, before escaping to California in order to garden year-round. He has designed private and public gardens in Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, and California. He taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Landscape Architecture for six years and gives occasional lectures throughout the Bay Area on garden design and on the wildflowers of South Africa and Australia. He has served as director of the San Francisco Landscape Garden Show and as director of education for the Strybing Arboretum Society. He was the executive director for The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek, CA, the first private garden to be sponsored by The Garden Conservancy. Since 1997, he has been the editor of Pacific Horticulture, one of the country’s top garden magazines. He has traveled extensively to study gardens, plants, and wildlife in North America, Europe, Chile, South Africa, and Australia. He edited the recently published Trees of Golden Gate Park and San Francisco, and was the consultant editor for The Nature Company Guide to Natural Gardening, American editor for Botanica and The Ultimate Plant and Garden Book; and a contributing editor to the Sunset Western Landscaping Book. His small, chemical-free San Francisco garden provides habitat for birds, butterflies, snakes, and an occasional skunk.

Lecture:
Art & Architecture in the Garden: When Flowers Are Not Enough
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 10:00 a.m.

Sponsored by:

Phil Van Soelen is past-president of the Milo Baker (Sonoma County) Chapter of the California Native Plant Society, and is on the Board of Directors of the Hallberg Butterfly Garden.

His writing includes a children’s’ book, Cricket in the Grass, published in 1971 by Scribners and the Sierra Club, two articles in Pacific Horticulture magazine, one on the Vine Hill Manzanita, January 2004, and one on the California native shrub, Styrax in April 2005. He co-authored an article entitled THE CONSERVATION OF TWO SONOMA COUNTY MANZANITAS in the July 2005 FREMONTIA a Journal of the California Native Plant Society. His Sebastopol, California garden was featured in Pacific Horticulture, October 2003.

Phil is an adjunct professor at Santa Rosa Junior College and teaches classes on Gardening with California Native Plants.

Co-owners Phil Van Soelen and Sherrie Althouse opened California Flora Nursery in 1981 as a California native plants nursery.

Awards received include the 2002 Annual Award from the California Horticultural Society for contributions to California Horticulture, and the Xeriscape Award from the Sonoma County Water Agency for contributions toward the development of drought tolerant landscapes in 1987.

http://www.calfloranursery.com

Lecture:
Gardening for Wildlife with Native Plants
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 12:00 Noon

Shirley Alexandra Watts is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Ancien Eleve de l’Ecole du Louvre in Paris and attended Tyler School of Art In Rome. She is principal of sawattsdesign, an award winning design build firm that works in gardens all over the Bay Area. With her background in fine arts and nearly twenty years of working in the field she has developed a personal design style using new and salvaged materials, plantsmanship and an ability to bring a surprising element of contemporary culture to a garden. Each project is an individual exploration of people, space and site. Her inspiration touches all elements of gardens from hardscape and layout, to custom furniture and lighting designs.

Her work has been featured in Garden Design magazine, Sunset, the SF Chronicle, New Garden Design by Zahid Sardar and Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways by Debra Prinzing. Several projects will appear in the upcoming New Low Maintenance Garden by Valerie Easton.

www.sawattsdesign.com

Images from past projects

Lecture:
Beyond Sustainable: Inspiration and art in 21st century garden design
Or what a 25 cent 1930's deep green velvet bias cut evening gown taught me about life
Friday, September 18, 2009 at 3:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

Glenn Withey and Charles Price have had their own business since 1985. Plant and color "junkies", they consult, design and install gardens and work on both coasts. While their work is primarily residential, Charles was the lead designer for the original Northwest Perennial Alliance display border, at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. Both are working on the complete redesign/overhaul of this display garden, with work to be completed in 2010.

Their work has been featured in magazine articles, both regionally and nationally, in addition to books. The two of them have lectured extensively, though now prefer to spend their time puttering in the garden.

Currently they are (slowly) writing a book for Timber Press, on the process of how to put a garden together.

Images from past projects

Lecture:
Conundrum: Can a garden actually be “sustainable”?
Saturday, September 19, 2009 at 1:00 p.m.

Sponsored by:

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