Gardening For Dummies

Sue Fisher is a lifelong plant enthusiast whose main aim isto make gardening as user-friendly and approachable as possible.After training at Oaklands College, St Albans, the first ten yearsof her career were spent in the nursery and garden centre industry,including five years as plant buyer for a group of top gardencentres and a landscape company. In 1990 Sue decided to bring herenthusiasm for plants to a wider audience and became a freelancewriter 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 ForceGarden Handbook and Geoff Hamilton's GardeningYear, and contributed to several of the Reader's Digestgardening books. Her gardening features have been published in manymagazines and newspapers, including Gardeners' World,Gardens Monthly, and Garden News. Sue currently gardensin Buckinghamshire where her two young children are fast making heran expert on family gardening.
Michael MacCaskey began his college career as a creativearts student at San Francisco State University in 1969, but in theprocess became instead a passionate gardener. By 1976 he received aBachelor of Science degree in ornamental horticulture fromCalifornia State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. Sincethen, he's had the good fortune to work for and learn fromgarden editors such as Walter Doty, Richard Dunmire, JoeWilliamson, and Bill Marken. A second-generation Los Angeles native(zone 9), he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of Vermont-basedNational 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 boththe Western Magazine Publishers Association and the Garden Writersof America.
Bill Marken is the editor of Rebecca's GardenMagazine, a new publication from Hearst Magazines Enterprisesbased on the popular television show. A lifelong resident ofCalifornia, Bill served as editor-in-chief of Sunset, theMagazine of Western Living, from 1981 to 1996. Earlier inhis career, he wrote for the magazine's garden section,pitched in on several editions of the bestselling Western GardenBook, and generally nurtured his interests in subjects relatedto gardening, landscaping, travel, and other aspects of the goodlife in the West. A vacation garden at 6,200-feet elevation giveshim insight into coldwinter climates with 100-day growingseasons.
The National Gardening Association is the largestmember-based, nonprofit organisation of home gardeners in the US.Founded in 1972 (as 'Gardens for All') to spearhead thecommunity garden movement, today's National GardeningAssociation is best known for its bimonthly publication,National Gardening magazine. Reporting on all aspects ofhome gardening, each issue is read by some half-million gardenersworldwide. For more information about the National GardeningAssociation in the US, see its Web site at www.garden.org.