Meet Canada Blooms Speakers:

Canada Blooms' incredible line-up of speakers includes the industry's best-known horticultural specialists. Learn from their wealth of knowledge and experience through educational seminars and interactive demonstrations on every garden-related topic you can imagine!

Tom Bradley	Tom has over 20 years experience in the horticultural sciences. He currently operates his own business as a Consulting Arborist and garden consultant. Tom holds a degree in Plant Protection from the University of Guelph, a diploma in Landscape Technology from Humber College, and teaches several part time courses within Sheridan College's Horticultural Studies program. He is a member of both the American Society of Consulting Arborists (A.S.C.A.) and the International Society of Arboriculture (I.S.A.). Tom also does public speaking engagements at local horticultural societies, with a career highlight of speaking at the 2008 and 2009 Canada Blooms Garden Show in Toronto.
Ken Brown	Ken Brown is a horticultural consultant, writer and photographer. He received his bachelor's degree in horticulture from the University of Guelph and has a horticulture teaching degree from the University of Toronto. He owned and operated "The Plant Manager" an interior landscaping company for 20 years, where he built and maintained a wide variety of public and private interior gardens. Ken is a certified horticultural judge and a frequent speaker at meetings and seminars. Ken has been published in several magazines and papers and you can visit his website: wwwlgardening-enjoyed.com for great gardening tips.
Tom Brown	Tom Brown and his wife Susan Meisner, owners of Spindle Tree Gardens new Tamworth, Ontario, have been designing and developing garden since they met in 1984. Tom, after 40 years as President of Thomas Brown Architects in Toronto, retired to work for "the perfect client" - himself! He has designed and built all the various gardens, including the new cedar maze, the Bridge and Pavilion, restored the historic and newly-installed Victorian Well cover, and with Susan, develops the planting plans for the coming year as well as plans for new gardens and feature attractions. He also weeds, digs, plants trees and continues to add to the half mile of stone walls he has already built on the property. For more information on Tom visit spindletree.ca.
Beth Cook	Beth Cook spent decades in the IT industry before escaping a few years ago to play full time in her garden. She's been a member of the Durham Master Gardeners for about three years and has recently received the Horticulturist Certificate from the University of Guelph. She enjoys sharing her knowledge with the public and helping solve the gardening problems presented by contemporary urban environments.
Joe & Hazel Cook	Joe and Hazel Cook have operated Blossom Hill Nursery, a family owned business since 1994. Specializing in hybridization and prapagation of British Delphinium elatum, Blossom Hill's delphiniums have won the only two Bronze medals form the UK Delphinium Society. A second passion has resulted in an extensive peony collection of over 400 varieties. Last year Hazel's large double yellow intersectional ‘Bartzella’ won the Grand Championship at the Montreal Botanical Gardens.
Mark Cullen	Mark Cullen is Canada's best known gardener. Each week he reaches over 1 million Canadians through various media outlets. You can also hear Mark's message on CTV/Canada Am and on Newstalk 1010 CFRB. Mark's book 'The Canadian Garden Primer, An Organic Approach' features information both the vegetable garden and the ornamental garden. Visit Mark's website www.markcullen.com for great garden advice.
Sonia Day	Sonia Day is a gardening columnist for the Toronto Star and author of six books. Her latest, hot off the press, is "Incredible Edibles: 43 Fun Things You Can Grow in the City", on sale for the first time at Canada Blooms. Her previous books include the bestseller, "The Urban Gardener" and "Middle-Aged Spread, Moving to the Country at 50", a humorous memoir published last fall. Sonia will reveal which veggies, herbs and fruit are easy to grow in the city -- and which you should avoid.
Dr. Mike Dixon	Dr. Mike Dixon is the Director of the Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility and program as well as a full Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph. As project leader for the Canadian research team investigating the contributions of plants to life support in space, Dr. Dixon formed the Space and Advanced Life Support Agriculture (SALSA) program at the University of Guelph and is the project leader for the research team investigating the biofiltration of indoor air as a method of alleviating what is commonly known as "sick building syndrome".
Beth Edney	Beth Edney is a certified landscape designer. With 20 years experience in landscape design, her work has been published in Gardening Life, Canadian Gardening, Chatelaine, Horticultural Review, Readers’ Digest, Metro News, The Toronto Star, The Toronto Sun, and the Globe and Mail. Her work has been seen on HGTV , the Wnetwork, and CityTV. Beth has built several award winning gardens at Canada Blooms. She also has won Awards of Excellence for her residential designs.
Tarek El-Khatib	During the last 20 years, Tarek El-Khatib a graduate of the University of Toronto - School of Architecture Program, has emerged as one of Canada's leading international architects. As one of the firm's two senior partners, Tarek El-Khatib is the primary driver of Zeidler's most celebrated projects in recent years winning numerous honours including a Canadian Society of Landscape Architects National Honours Award for the Canadian Diplomatic Complex, Seoul, Korea. The firm's Toronto projects include the Trump International Hotel and Tower and the recently announced Ryerson University Student Learning Centre.
Frank Ferragine	Frank Ferragine aka Frankie Flowers is arguably Canada's only and favorite weather and gardening personality. As Weather and Garden Specialist on Toronto's number one morning show Breakfast Televisions Frank's no nonsense weather and practical gardening advice can be seen daily on CityTV Toronto. Nationally Frank can be seen on Canada's longest running lifestyle show CityLine and his advice can be read within the pages of Canadian Living Magazine. Twice Frank has been awarded Landscape Ontario's Garden Broadcaster of the year and for the last 4 years Toronto Sun Readers have voted Frank as their favorite weather personality. In his spare time Frank is a proud father, husband and continues to work within his family business Bradford Greenhouses.
Tom Fischer	Tom Fischer is editor-in-chief of Timber Press. Before moving to Portland, Oregon, in 2004, he was the editor of Horticulture magazine in Boston, Massachusetts. His experiences as a bi-costal gardener and his inexhaustible curiosity about plants have 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.
Denis Flanagan	After graduating from Horticulture in Surrey, England Denis was involved in many projects including work for the Royal Family and achieved a Gold medal at The Chelsea Flower Show. Following a successful transplant to Canada, Denis continued designing award winning gardens including many for Canada Blooms, he has taught at several community colleges including Humber and Seneca. Denis is well known for his Gardening shows on HGTV and continues to promote the joys and benefits of horticulture through the ‘Green for Life“ program at Landscape Ontario .com
Lorraine Flanigan	Lorraine Flanigan is a Toronto-based freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in leading gardening and lifestyle publications and websites, including Canadian Gardening. She is editor of Trellis, the magazine of the Toronto Botanical Garden and writes the City Gardening column in the Town Crier newspapers. Lorraine has recently launched citygardeningonline.com, a blog-a-zine with articles, tips and news for urban gardeners.
Betty Fretz	Betty Fretz gardens with her husband of nearly 40 years, Marv, in their little bit of heaven on the west coast of Conestogo Lake. A Master Gardener since 1999 and one of the founding members of the Guelph and Wellington County Master Gardeners, she has a passion for her collection of 3200 daylilies, 660 hosta, 160 heuchera and many other perennials. Their touring garden consists of 50 display beds in addition to the growing fields. The gardens have American Hemerocallis Display Garden status, and she is an active member of many clubs and committees, and speaks on a number of differing fields.
Belinda Gallagher	Belinda is an avid grower of rare, unusual, native and the more common perennial plants, as well as vines, grasses, shrubs, trees and fungus and she experiments with plants of all hardiness ratings. In 1998 she officially opened Triffids Plants and began to sell many of her unusual, rare and rarely grown plants, which were predominantly seed-raised. In 2008, Belinda closed Triffids Plants and took on the role as Head of Horticulture at Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington. She is responsible for the 250 acres of cultivated gardens, along with horticultural outreach and horticultural education. With thirty years as a public speaker, her gardening and flower design talks are both educational AND entertaining. She never forgets that humour is the only thing that sets us above the intelligence level of a hosta.
Miriam Goldberger	Miriam Goldberger, best known for her eco-friendly and practical approach to gardening, has more than 25 years of horticulture experience in both hands-on and instructional settings. Miriam is President of Wildflower Farm, a unique natural garden center, native plant nursery and wildflower botanical garden; Wildflower Farm is a leading wildflower seed supplier and the developers and distributors of Eco-Lawn. She has been featured in many Canadian and U.S. magazines and newspapers and is regularly interviewed on radio and TV and in a multiplicity of digital media. For more information on Miriam visit her website: www.wildflowerfarm.com
Albert Graves	Albert was born in Holland but is a native of Canada. These past fifteen years he is the highly popular professor of floral art at Humber College and has taught some of the most talented young designers in the industry today. Continually searching for the new and novel he has the unique talent of keeping things within a strict design ethos, but always eye-catching. Whether it’s decorations for the Dutch Queen’s birthday, flowers for visiting dignitaries, glamorous celebrities or an appearance on various television shows, you can be sure that Albert’s designs always bear his unique signature.
Laura Hathaway	Laura Hathaway is a Master Gardener in training. She has a diploma from Ridgetown College in Agriculture. Currently she works for the City of London in the Parks and Recreation Department during the summer and the Environmental Services in the winter. She belongs to the McIlwraith Field Naturalists of London. Her and her husband, own a small farm outside of Melbourne, where they enjoy working with their Belgian horses and have a small flock of sheep as well as some other odds and ends. Her gardens are a natural style and pesticide free because of her love for butterflies and beekeeping. She recently became a certified seed collector for Trees Ontario and tries to grow native plants at her home. She is involved in Citizen Science Research and enjoys speaking and educating the public about environmental matters.
Sean James	Sean James has been gardening professionally since age sixteen, (26 years now!) and has been speaking publicly since 1991. A graduate of the Niagara Parks School of Horticulture, he runs Fern Ridge Landscaping and Eco-consulting, a small, quality, consulting /designing/installation & maintenance company, (www.fernridgelandscaping.com) and is a two-time past-President of the Milton & District Horticultural Society. He designed the Milton Millennium Garden. Sean also writes a monthly gardening column in the Halton Compass and Milton Life Magazine - some of which can be read on his Fern Ridge website. He's spoken on CBC Radio on Green Roofing and Sean and Fern Ridge Landscaping were featured in four episodes of HGTV's 'Green Force'.
Lorraine Johnson	Lorraine Johnson is the author of numerous books related to environmental and native plant gardening, including The New Ontario Naturalized Garden; 100 Easy-to-Grow Native Plants for Canadian Gardens; and The Gardener's Manifesto. In May 2010, her upcoming book, City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing, will be published by Greystone. Lorraine is past-president of the North American Native Plant Society, a Patron of the Toronto Botanical Garden, and a board member of the Toronto organization LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests). She is a frequent contributor to magazines such as Canadian Gardening and On Nature, and has deep roots in Toronto's community gardening movement. Lorraine also teaches a native plant ecosystems course in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University and edits the magazine Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly.
Peter Keeping	Peter started to become interested in growing vines in the early 80's. Since then, he has collected more than over 300 different types of Clematis. His real passion is the herbaceous Clematis, which he grows mostly from seed and cuttings. To date, he has about 35 herbaceous Clematis planted in the garden, in addition to the 300 climbing types of Clematis. He is a council member of the International Clematis Society, answering most of the questions across Canada on the NET. He is also a member of the British Clematis Society. He is a member of several horticultural societies and gives talks on all types of climbing vines. He imports rare Clematis from around the world, which he shares with other collectors.
Georgie Kennedy	Georgie Kennedy has taught for three years in Jamaica. She has gardened every inch of her Markham property, even the boulevard is landscaped with big sitting rocks and planted with perennials. If it were not for her family, she would spend every waking minute of the day outside, moving things around, deadheading and generally taking care of my green babies. Since retiring, she has been heavily involved in the landscaping of her Jamaican home. She always has a project on the go and next year she plans to set up exclusive garden tours of Jamaica for garden writers, photographers and Master Gardeners.
Frank Kershaw	Frank Kershaw is an award winning horticulturalist with more than thirty-five years experience in the parks, environmental and horticultural fields. Prior to his recent retirement, he worked thirty plus years as a director in the parks field with both the former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto and the City of Toronto. Frank was one of the founding members of the Canadian Wildflower Society and has in the past served as one of its directors. He now spends a great deal of his time teaching at George Brown College in Toronto and the Toronto Botanical Garden. He has been a horticultural contributor to many garden publications and is a popular garden speaker at many horticultural events. In 1997, he was the recipient of the Garden Club of Toronto's "Award of Honour" for his outstanding contribution to horticulture. In the year 2000, he made a presentation on behalf of Toronto to the Nations in Bloom Contest in Japan, wherein Toronto won first place for cities over one million population.
Cathy Kozma	Cathy Kozma is Chair of the Toronto Beekeepers Co-operative. A lifelong downtown Torontonian, an avid gardener and Toronto Master Gardener in Training Cathy noticed dwindling honeybee and native bee populations in her own Annex area garden, and decided to do something about it! Also the founder of Garden for Good, she started urban beekeeping as a hobby in 2004. Working in partnership with FoodShare the Toronto Beekeepers Co-operative now manages beehives in the City's core, including 20 beehives in the Don Valley at Evergreen BrickWorks, and 6 on the rooftop of the Fairmont Royal York Hotel. A Realtor by profession, Cathy is a popular speaker in both beekeeping and hort society circles.
J.Paul Lamarch	J.Paul Lamarche is an avid gardener, landscape designer, and Horticultural Consultant. Through the use of Herbs and Perennials, as well as the attraction of predator insects he has been able to garden pest and disease free. He gardens with minimal use of water as well as without the use of any type of fertilizer, except his own compost. The key, is understanding that for every action there is an equal or even greater reaction and that nothing lasts long without a good foundation! J.Paul Lamarche is co-author of "A Notebook for Gentle Gardeners", a Canadian bestseller. He has spoken across North America on this topic as well as lecturing at most major schools of Horticulture & Horticultural Associations.
Jeff Lownfels	Jeff Lowenfels' weekly column has run in the Anchorage Daily News for over 27 years. He hosts a weekly garden radio show and Alaska public television's Alaska Gardens with Jeff Lowenfels. Jeff also founded Plant A Row for the Hungry, an active program that created over 14 million meals to feed the hungry in 2005. A popular national garden writer and leading proponent of gardening using the concepts of the soil food web, Jeff teaches home gardeners about the soil food web in a painless and extremely entertaining way.
Lorraine Mennen	Lorraine Mennen is co-owner of Pathways to Perennials, a full-service residential landscape design/ construct firm. Lorraine's focus on family lifestyle, nature and ecology underlies everything she does. She and the Pathways team create outdoor rooms that are natural extensions of indoor living where there's something to do outdoors, in every season, for every age. Lorraine has made numerous television and radio guest appearances and is the garden expert for television's The Weather Network. A talented writer, Lorraine also has numerous print and magazine credits to her name, including the 2006 release of her book "Garden Great Rooms: Extending Your Living Space Outdoors."
Lawson Oates	Lawson Oates is Director of the City of Toronto's Environment Office, which is responsible for developing and co-ordinating the implementation of the Toronto's Climate Change Mitigation Program. Lawson is a graduate of York University's Faculty of Environmental Studies. He has worked for the new City of Toronto since its inception in 1998 and prior to that with the former Metro Toronto. Among his achievements are participation in the City's Task Force 2010 establishing community and Council support for a curbside organics management program - now known as the successful Green Bin program. He is the author of several published articles and papers on solid waste management and environmental subjects.
Robert Pavlis	Robert Pavlis is the president and owner of Labtronics Inc, a software company located in Guelph. Robert grew Orchids for over 10 years, and gave presentations on the topic to several horticultural societies as well as the KW Orchid society, London Orchid society and the RBG Orchids society. He also wrote extensively about orchids for society publications. Robert is a Master Gardener IT with the Guelph, Wellington group and has published gardening articles in the Ontario Gardener, and the Puslinch Pioneer. He is also a contributing author to the Vineland Research Blog. Robert has been gardening for over 30 years. In 2005, he purchased a large property south of Guelph, and is developing Aspen Grove Gardens, a 5 acre private site. Aspen Grove, has large perennial beds in both sun and shade, a large 'wet' waterfall, and a 'dry' waterfall.
Tony Post	Ignoring 20 years of horticulture experience, Tony Post has been gardening with marginally hardy plants for about 10 years. He lives and works in Niagara where he grows evergreen Magnolias, exotic flowering trees, hardy bananas and many other plants.
Bill Redelmeier	Bill Redelmeier is the owner of Southbrook Winery of Niagara region that was designed by Jack Diamond grew from Richmond Hill originally where the Pumpkin Patch is also known for the pumpkins, the corn and the fruit wines. Their newest farm boasts that they are sustainable and adapt the principles of Biodynamism.
Lorraine Roberts	Lorraine Roberts and her husband Robert are owners of Plant Paradise Country Gardens, a unique garden centre and organic perennial nursery that is located on 24 acres in the Albion Hills area of Caledon. At Plant Paradise Country Gardens you can tour the extensive perennial display gardens of continuous bloom that showcase the many rare and unusual varieties of plants they grow and sell. Visit www.plantparadise.ca for more information. Lorraine has a wealth of knowledge in the field of horticulture, landscape design and writes gardening articles for the "Caledon Living Magazine". She lectures at many horticultural societies, and has presented workshops in collaboration with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority. She is a member of the Orangeville & District Horticultural Society and the Ontario Delphinium Club.
Ron Rossini	Ron Rossini is a Master Gardener with London/Middlesex Master Gardeners and a very active horticultural speaker in Ontario. Published garden writer, and, gardening expert for Radio 980 Saturday morning show in London.
Peter Schneider	Peter Schneider has edited the Combined Rose List, the annual directory of roses in commerce, since 1992. He is the author of Peter Schneider on Roses, and editor of Taylor's Guide to Roses. His articles and essays about roses have appeared in Horticulture, The Gardener, Garden Style, and other publications. With his wife, Susan, he grows 1,200 varieties of roses in rural Ohio.
Kate Seaver	Kate Seaver, M.Sc. is a Horticulturist, Floral Designer and Garden Décor Expert. After almost twenty years as a corporate executive, Kate followed her passion for gardening and created Kate's Garden; a Botanical Retail Studio which specializes in Perennial Gardening Services and Botanical Seminars and Events. Kate is a professionally trained speaker, a frequent television guest, charity fundraiser and magazine writer.
Christina Sharma	Christina Sharma has been a volunteer educator with the Canadian Wildlife Federation since 2001. In 2002, Christina received the Queen's Golden Jubilee medal for public education on how residential properties can support wildlife conservation. In 2009, Christina was nominated for the 1st Annual Urban Hero Award by Toronto Community News, Etobicoke. In 2007, Christina founded Project CHIRP! (Creating Habitat In Residential areas and Parkland). Her initiatives have been featured in the Toronto Star, on CBC Radio and television and in a variety of publications.
Larry Sherk	Lawrence (Larry) Sherk was Chief Horticulturist for Sheridan Nurseries Limited, which nurseries located in Glen Williams, Norval and Newtonville; Ten garden centres in Metro Toronto, Unionville, Whitby, Mississauga, Kitchener and Georgetown. Larry retired after 32 years with Sheridan Nurseries Limited. Larry is a native of Port Colborne, Ontario. He is a graduate of the University of Guelph and Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, where he majored in Ornamental Horticulture. After University, Larry spent one year studying gardens and plants in Europe, and at the Plant Research Institute, Canada Agriculture in Ottawa he conducted research on the growing of Canada's wild flowers in the garden and helped develop Canada's plant hardiness map for woody ornamental plants. He is senior author of the book "Ornamental Shrubs for Canada", and also author of the bulletin "Growing Canada's Floral Emblems".
Astrid Muschalla	Astrid Muschalla is a community activist, educator and garden designer promoting biodiversity through creating or conserving indigenous plants in the home landscape and public areas. Astrid's work as project co-founder and designer of "Prescott Blossoms, A Community Initiative" was created to conserve ecological integrity and enhance the biodiversity of a highly visible barren public space on a 3 km stretch along the St. Lawrence River in Eastern Ontario. She was nominated for outstanding contributions to urban stewardship in Ontario from Evergreen and for the Urban Habitat Stewardship Award from Wildlife Habitat Canada. Astrid is a graduate of Horticulturist Program from the University of Guelph and teaches in the Commercial Gardener and Expert Gardener programs through Ontario Learn.
Elizabeth Stewart	Elizabeth Stewart grew up on the farm in Saskatchewan and considered 'gardening' a hateful word, since it meant hours of dusty, backbreaking, hoeing, weeding and harvesting the vegetable garden in the blazing sun. To her surprise, many years later in Toronto, she found herself living in a funky, rented, Queen Street West studio in a renovated factory building - with a garden! More specifically, a series of 80 feet of shady terraced beds rising steeply skyward from a basement walkout. Over the next several years, she graduated from petunias to polyanthus and from an avowed non-gardener to an addict, with more books on gardening that the Toronto Reference Library (almost), several magazine subscriptions and eventually - frustratingly - not a single square centimetre of earth left unplanted. Since moving to her tiny bungalow, she has transformed her back yard into what she calls a 'working farm'. The successor to that back-breaking Saskatchewan vegetable garden is a beautiful and bountiful urban mini-farm, recently featured in Canadian Gardening magazine. She's also become an active member of Toronto Master Gardeners, where she serves as Communications Coordinator.
Dianne & Gary Westlake	Dianne and Gary retired to Peterborough and look after an acre of property on a hill overlooking the city. They decided join the Master Gardeners several years ago on Dianne's suggestion (Gary says Dianne is the brains of the operation). Master Gardeners, are volunteers, who to help others garden and in doing so the Master Gardeners improve their own skills and knowledge. For a couple of years Gary was a Director on the board of Master Gardeners of Ontario. Dianne is the Coordinator for the Peterborough and Area Master Gardeners and Dianne and Gary are the Editors of the Master Gardeners of Ontario Newsletter.
Paul Zammit	Paul Zammit, a graduate of the University of Guelph, is the current Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden. Formerly, he was employed at Plant World, a large retail garden centre where he was the perennial department manager for almost two decades. He is a regular speaker at garden clubs and horticultural trade shows both in Canada and the United States and has appeared both on television and in print. Paul and Uli’s home garden has been featured in Canadian Living, Gardening Life, Canadian Gardening and Gardening How-To. The garden was awarded first place in the environmental garden category in the 2001 City of Toronto Garden Contest followed by an award in 2003 for the Best Use of Plant Material in the City of Toronto West District Garden Contest. Paul’s container designs have also been showcased several times in assorted gardening magazines. In 2008, he won first place in the Scotts Miracle-Gro, Do Up the Doorstep competition, for his container entry at Canada Blooms. Paul has been awarded the Young Professionals award by the Perennial Plant Association.