Sue Fisher is a lifelong plant enthusiast whose main aim is
to make gardening as user-friendly and approachable as possible.
After training at Oaklands College, St Albans, the first ten years
of her career were spent in the nursery and garden centre industry,
including five years as plant buyer for a group of top garden
centres and a landscape company. In 1990 Sue decided to bring her
enthusiasm for plants to a wider audience and became a freelance
writer and broadcaster. To date she has written ten books,
including Garden Colour, Essential Plants for Small Gardens,
and Fast Plants, as well as co-authoring Ground Force
Garden Handbook and Geoff Hamilton's Gardening
Year, and contributed to several of the Reader's Digest
gardening books. Her gardening features have been published in many
magazines and newspapers, including Gardeners' World,
Gardens Monthly, and Garden News. Sue currently gardens
in Buckinghamshire where her two young children are fast making her
an expert on family gardening.
Michael MacCaskey began his college career as a creative
arts student at San Francisco State University in 1969, but in the
process became instead a passionate gardener. By 1976 he received a
Bachelor of Science degree in ornamental horticulture from
California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. Since
then, he's had the good fortune to work for and learn from
garden editors such as Walter Doty, Richard Dunmire, Joe
Williamson, and Bill Marken. A second-generation Los Angeles native
(zone 9), he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Vermont-based
National Gardening Magazine (zone 4) in 1994. Since then,
he's been learning about gardening in a short-season,
coldwinter region. His magazine writing has been honoured by both
the Western Magazine Publishers Association and the Garden Writers
of America.
Bill Marken is the editor of Rebecca's Garden
Magazine, a new publication from Hearst Magazines Enterprises
based on the popular television show. A lifelong resident of
California, Bill served as editor-in-chief of Sunset, the
Magazine of Western Living, from 1981 to 1996. Earlier in
his career, he wrote for the magazine's garden section,
pitched in on several editions of the bestselling Western Garden
Book, and generally nurtured his interests in subjects related
to gardening, landscaping, travel, and other aspects of the good
life in the West. A vacation garden at 6,200-feet elevation gives
him insight into coldwinter climates with 100-day growing
seasons.
The National Gardening Association is the largest
member-based, nonprofit organisation of home gardeners in the US.
Founded in 1972 (as 'Gardens for All') to spearhead the
community garden movement, today's National Gardening
Association is best known for its bimonthly publication,
National Gardening magazine. Reporting on all aspects of
home gardening, each issue is read by some half-million gardeners
worldwide. For more information about the National Gardening
Association in the US, see its Web site at www.garden.org.
