New England Wild Flower Society

Speakers Bureau – 2010

(Contact the speakers directly as each maintains his/her own calendar.

Please note speaker fees, except for travel expenses, are used exclusively for

Garden in the Woods and our plant conservation efforts.)

Conservation Director, New England Wild Flower Society since 1991. Initiated the New England Plant Conservation Program (NEPCoP), a regional voluntary collaborative of representatives from over 60 organizations. Supervises NEPCoP, Plant Conservation Volunteer Corps, New England Flora (development of a new flora including a field manual and associated website). Co-authored A Guide to Invasive Plants in Massachusetts (2006), Flora Conservanda: New England, the NEPCoP List of plants in need of conservation (1997). 1982 to Present – recovery projects for four federally endangered species. Graduate, Washington and Lee University.

Topics:

• Climate Change
• Invasive Plants
• Conserving Native Flora

John Burns (508-877-7630, ext 3204, jburns@newenglandwild.org) -  $200 per talk with 50 cents per mile over 50 miles travel.

Administrative Coordinator for the Plant Conservation Volunteer Program. MS from Antioch New England, studying ferns in southern Brazil. Field work for the States of Massachusetts and Vermont and private organizations such as Massachusetts Audubon Society, Deerfield River Watershed Association, and Massachusetts Riverways Program.

Topics:

• Ferns and Fern Allies
• Wetland Shrubs
• Beginner Sedges
• Trees
• Invasives
• Volunteerism

Kristin DeSouza (508-877-7630, ext 3404, kdesouza@newenglandwild.org) - $200 per hour plus 50 cents per mile for each additional mile over 50 miles travel.

Horticulturist at Garden in the Woods.  She has a degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  Kristin has interned at the Arnold Arboretum, New York City’s Central Park, the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and the Eden Project.     

Topics:

• Sustainable Landscape Techniques
• Gardening in Wet Spaces with Native Plants
• Edible Gardens - design and installation of edible native plants

Debra Edelstein (508-877-7630, ext 3101, dedelstein@newenglandwild.org) – $500 per talk or panel.

Executive Director, New England Wild Flower Society.  At NESCAUM, the regional organization that provides scientific and policy expertise to the air agencies of the eight Northeastern states, she established a new collaborative effort by the states and the US EPA to reduce diesel emissions. As Vice President and Executive Director of National Audubon Society/Audubon Washington, she published the country’s first “State of the Birds” report, garnered a unanimous legislative vote for a first-in-the-nation state law adopting Audubon’s Important Bird Areas into the Natural Heritage Database used for land use and management decisions on both public and private land, and produced the first “State of Environmental Education” report at the request of the Washington legislature. As Bioreserve Project Manager for The Trustees of Reservations, she led the Trustees’ role in creating the 13,600-acre Southeastern Massachusetts Bioreserve, the Commonwealth’s largest land-protection project.  She has also been a consultant offering environmental planning, education, and communication services, a marketing director, editor, and writer. She holds a MCP (Master in City Planning) in Environmental Policy and Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an AB in English from Bryn Mawr College. 

Topic:  New England Wild Flower Society’s Position on Climate Change.

Ted Elliman (508-877-7630, ext 3203, telliman@newenglandwild.org)  - $200 - $300 per talk plus travel expenses.

Vegetation Management Coordinator at New England Wild Flower Society; before NEWFS, did rare plant searches, forest community surveys, and invasive plant management for ten years on Appalachian Trail and Boston Harbor Islands on contract with National Park Service.

Topics:

• Invasive Plants of New England—survey of invasive plants throughout the region—identification, habitats, range, impacts on natural landscapes, and management strategies to control each species.
• Natural Communities of New England: survey of the plant associations of the region’s native upland and wetland habitats, including alpine habitats, variety of forest communities, swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and coastal habitats.

• Flora, natural/cultural history and conservation in western China

Scott LaFleur (508-877-7630, ext 3401, slafleur@newenglandwild.org) - $250 for first hour, $100 per each additional hour. Travel expenses if extensive. (All garden clubs are invited to create a group order for plants and receive a 20% discount if the order is placed at the presentation.)

Botanic Garden Director, Garden in the Woods.  Scott is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire horticulture program, specializing in perennials and perennial garden design. He started a professional gardening service and expanded it into a landscape design and installation company on the seacoast of NH. After selling the business, he undertook a three year project, designing a 135 acre Vermont farm into rolling green hills, extensive gardens and a network of trails to access the property for horses and hiking. Scott joined New England Wild Flower Society as Senior Horticulturist of Garden in the Woods in 2005 and became Horticulture Director in January, 2008. Currently as Botanic Garden Director, he is curator of the plant collection and oversees facilities, visitor services, and retail services at Garden in the Woods.

Topics:

• Go Native – General native plant horticulture and Garden in the Woods
• Suburban Natives – perennials and grasses for your yard
• Garden Emotions – Designing with native plants based on texture, shape, mood, movement, and interaction with light
• Coastal Natives – Native plants for coastal gardens. Ecological methods of maintenance
• Under the Canopy – Shade gardening with native plants
• Garden Surprises – Art exhibits at Garden in the Woods
• Making Green while Going Green – Designed for garden centers. How native plants are a green and sustainable choice for consumers.
• Rain Gardens, Helping nature & Having Fun – Information about environmental concerns of storm water pollution and a guide to construction of a rain garden
• Gardening in the Face of Climate Change: How climate change will effect gardeners from changing USDA plant hardiness zone map to disappearing and retreating species.
• Listening to the Landscape: Using Nature’s Clues to Design a Garden that Works.
• Listening to the Seacoast Landscape (New Hampshire & Southern Maine): Using Nature’s Clues to Design a Garden that Works.
• Understanding the Soil Food Web – Soil, its properties, inhabitants and how it forms the basis of all we do in the garden. Discussion also of composting to compost tea

Kate Pawling (413-397-9922, kpawling@newenglandwild.org) $200 per talk plus travel expenses.

Nursery Administrator at Nasami Farm, Whately, MA. Kate received a BS in Biology in 2006 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She began as an intern at Nasami Farm in 2007 and is now the plant propagator. She has a profound interest in plant communities, the life that they support and recreating this in the garden.

Topics:

• Cheap n' Easy, Propagation for the Beginner
• Propagating Wildflowers from Seed
• Seed Saving: Collection, Cleaning, and Storage
• Container Gardening with Perennials
  
• Gardening for Wildlife

Tristram Seidler (413 658 5336, tseidler@newenglandwild.org) - $250 plus travel expenses.

Ecologist, New England Wild Flower Society.  Seed program coordinator and curator of the Society's Seed Bank.  Tristram has studied plants since 1990 in regions as far-flung as Borneo, Venezuela, Argentina and Massachusetts' Pioneer Valley.  He earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003 for research on the species-rich tropical forests of Malaysia.  Since then he has focused on invasive plants in wetlands, and studied ex situ plant conservation at Kew Botanic Gardens' Millennium Seed Bank.  His background includes entomology and plant-animal interactions.

Topics:

• Plant diversity in tropical forests

• Ecology of invasive plants

• Seed banks and rare plant conservation

• Climate change, ecology and conservation

• Gardening for biodiversity

• Seed saving for gardeners

• Native bees in your garden

• So many yummy things: biodiversity for dinner

Ron Wik (413 397-9922, rwik@newenglandwild.org) - $400 plus travel expenses.

Nursery Business Director, New England Wild Flower Society.  Ron has over 20 years of experience growing native plants, 17 of which focused on the container production of both herbaceous and woody species.  He has a B.S. in Horticulture Science with a minor in Business Management from Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, and a M.S. in Plant Biology from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.  Ron is in his third season at Nasami Farm and has increased production efficiency and reduced crop cycle time, chemical usage, and carbon dioxide output.  His primary interest is the propagation and production of spring ephemeral and other hard-to-produce native species.

Topics:

• Plant physiology - introductory through advanced

• Plant propagation and production

• Fern propagation and culture

• Plant nutrition

• Butterfly gardening

• Nasami Farm - past, present and future

• Growing native orchids

• Nursery operations