Max Paschall is the Native Plants Coordinator at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education, managing the nursery and native plant sales. He is an ISA certified arborist, fourth-generation horticulturist, and founder of Shelterwood Forest Farm - an experimental land stewardship project exploring the intersection of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and climate resiliency. His work focuses on climate change adaptation, particularly through the practice of assisted migration.

Alan M. Jones is President of Manor View Farms in Monkton, Maryland. He was born in London, England, and immigrated to the United States in 1984.

Prior to attending Pershore College of Horticulture, Alan gained horticultural experience by working at The Royal Gardens, Windsor Castle, and the Savill Gardens, Valley Gardens, and Heather Garden in Windsor Great Park.

After graduating from Pershore College he joined Oakover Nurseries in Ashford, Kent, England, a seedling and propagation nursery. He joined Princeton Nurseries in 1984 after immigrating to the U.S. He became a vice president of Princeton Nurseries before leaving in 1994 to join Manor View Farm, Monkton, Maryland.

Along with two partners, Alan purchased Manor View Farm in 2007. One year before the recession! Manor View Farm is a 100-acre nursery growing a wide range of B&B trees and shrubs, a propagation division selling potted shrub liners to other nurseries, as well as an extensive Landscape Distribution Center serving the landscape contractor industry in Baltimore, Washington D.C., and northern Virginia.

Manor View is licensed to propagate introductions from Proven Winners, PlantHaven, Plant Nouveau, Concept Plants/Plant Tipp, and others.

Manor View Farm is located in the historic and scenic My Lady’s Manor in northern Baltimore County, Maryland.

Today’s Show is a special edition highlighting the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s (PHS) Philadelphia Flower Show. We have two special guests Sam Lemheney and Tim Iffel.

Sam Lemheney is the Chief of Shows and Events at PHS and directs the strategy, planning, and execution of all events including the annual Philadelphia Flower Show where over 250,000 visitors from around the world experience the work completed by him, his team, and PHS every year. Sam is a judge for flower shows in Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, and has judged the floats at the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. He is also an active member of the International Festivals and Events Association.

Sam received his B.S. in Plant Science from the University of Delaware and has had a lifelong passion for horticulture. He began his career at The Walt Disney Company in the Land Horticulture Science Program and eventually rose to the position of Area Manager of the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival.

Our second guest is Tim Ifill who is the Associate Director of Trees at PHS, supporting communities around the region that are working together to share the incredible benefits of trees. He leads a team that works with an incredible group of volunteers, community organizations, and government agencies to establish and maintain healthy tree canopies in Philadelphia-area neighborhoods.

Tim received a B.A. in linguistics from Haverford College. Prior to joining PHS, Tim served as Executive Director of Philly Fellows, a program he co-founded that built capacity for Philadelphia anti-poverty organizations and started young people on careers in public service. He started his career with the U.S. Forest Service, where he was lucky enough to serve in the National Forest, which is home to the world’s oldest living tree.

ason Lubar has been employed at Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania as the Associate Director of Urban Forestry for over twenty years. His career has focused on educating a wide audience about trees and natural resources. He teaches professional-level arboricultural courses, presents at international conferences, and supports Morris Arboretum’s educational mission by providing a wide range of tree-related consulting services to a diversity of clients including design firms, arborists, townships and municipalities, schools, and corporations.

Jason is the President of the ISA PennDel Chapter and is a Board-Certified Master Arborist, Tree Risk Assessment Qualified, and a member of the American Society of Consulting Arborists and holds the ASCA Tree and Plant Appraisal Qualification. He also is on the Executive Board and is treasurer of Pennsylvania’s Urban and Community Forestry Council.

Konstanze Fabian is an ISA Certified Arborist and ASCA Consulting Arborist. She holds a bachelor's degree in horticulture from Temple University and graduated with a master's degree in environmental studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Konstanze has over twenty years of experience in the Green Industry. Native to Germany, she began her career as an urban forester working with the trees in Berlin. After moving to the U.S. Konstanze worked as an assistant greenhouse manager, and then as an estate horticulturist. Before moving to Denver in 2018 to manage the Colorado operations for Bartlett Tree Experts, she spent four years with Bartlett as a plant health care specialist and arborist representative in the greater Philadelphia area.

Alex Smith is the owner of Division Street Landscaping, which is entirely staffed by ex-offenders. Alex started his journey while he was incarcerated. While serving a 30-year prison sentence for carjacking, assault, and handgun violations he was part of a group of guys who petitioned the warden for permission to start a horticulture program in prison. He became a Master Gardener behind bars and that program has now spread to other facilities in the state of Maryland. Now home, after serving 15 years of his 30-year sentence, he has created Urban Roots Apprenticeship a training program at the Baltimore Tree Trust where he served as the Director of Operations for five years. He has also created Division Street Academy under his own company with the goal of training guys in landscaping and entrepreneurship specifically in the landscaping industry. He also consults Workforce Development programs across the country that cater to the green job industry. He believes that there is a special kind of healing that takes place when the citizens of a community that once destroyed the community play a vital role in beautifying and maintaining those same places.

Jim Duggan leads the marketing and sales operations for Rootmaker Products Company, Inc. He oversees directing the sales organization and developing digital marketing programs to build the adoption of the Rootmaker growing technology. Jim Duggan is responsible for the strategic leadership of the sales and marketing department within the business and contributes to the overall growth strategy.

Duggan brings with him nearly 40 years of experience marketing high technology products and services to build companies through targeted growth. He has worked with both large and private companies. As RootMaker develops its next generation of disruptive products, Duggan will be instrumental in creating the company mission of expanding its vision of Landscape Scale Reforestation.

In his role prior to joining RootMaker, Duggan led the growth of an aerospace distributor from $28 million in annual sales to over $95 million. He has consulted with Rootmaker for the last 10 years, and he has been instrumental in building their vision of changing the way trees are grown into a reality.

Carol Wagner is a long-time horticulturist at Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania a suburb of Philadelphia. A life-long resident of Southeast Pennsylvania, she graduated from the Professional Gardener Program at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. She takes great pride in the history and plantings at Haverford, especially the College's great-grandchild of the Penn Treaty Elm. She recently became a founding member of the Newtown Township Shade Tree Commission.

Phil Forsyth currently serves as Co-Executive Director of the Philadelphia Orchard Project (POP), a non-profit that plants and supports community orchards in the City of Philadelphia. Phil has led POP’s orchard design and development since its first plantings in 2007. In his role, he works with POP’s board and staff to design and plant orchards, coordinate volunteers, and lead educational programs. Phil has eighteen years of experience in urban farming, gardening, and landscaping and holds a BS in Horticulture and Landscape Design from Colorado State University. In 2017, Phil received the first-ever Mary Seton Corboy Award for Public Horticulture from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.

Dwayne Sperber, founder, and owner of Wudeward Urban Forest Products has dedicated himself to building the urban wood industry. For nearly 20 years he has advised on the vast potential of this renewable resource. Dwayne is called on to provide urban wood utilization guidance and products for leaders across sectors including municipalities, academia, arborists, design professionals, manufacturers, and suppliers. Dwayne is an appointed member of the Wisconsin Urban Forestry Council and founding member and advisor of the Urban Wood Network.

(Wudeward is pronounced “Wood-word”)

Lara Roman is a Research Ecologist with the USDA Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Philadelphia Field Station. She studies the temporal dynamics of urban forests, including tree mortality and growth, canopy cover change, historical development of urban forests, species composition change, and citizen science monitoring. She has led or co-authored over 40 publications, including both academic journal articles and research summaries for professional arboriculture magazines. Her studies take a participatory research approach, collaborating with practitioners for study design and implementation. She received a Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science in biology, and a Master of Environmental Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research has been funded by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, the TREE Fund, the Garden Club of America.

Daan Bleichrodt is on a mission to re-connect urban kids with nature worldwide. He is Chief Tree Planting Officer at the IVN environmental education and leads the Tiny Forest movement in the Netherlands. He is also a consultant and teacher for Earthwatch in the UK, Goodplanet in Belgium, and Ecosystem Restoration Camps. He currently lives in the leafy town of Den Dolder with his wife Kiki and two sons - Mees and Tijn. He has a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality Management and a master’s degree in business administration and organizational change. Since joining IVN ten years ago, he has learned a great deal about restoring nature and restoring people’s connection to the living world.

Lori Hayes is the Director of Urban Forestry, and District Tree Crew, Districts 5, 6, 7, & 8, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and is a certified arborist through ISA (International Society of Arboriculture). She oversees many projects including the TreePhilly Program, street tree planting, and maintenance. Lori graduated from Temple University with a Bachelor of Science in horticulture, she is a Penn State Master Gardener, and a lifelong learner. Lori's passion for trees and the urban forest has given her the nickname The Lorax.

Diane Ehrich owns Collins Nursery, a small retail nursery in Glenside, Pennsylvania which specializes in container-grown native plants from the Mid-Atlantic region. The nursery was founded by John Collins, a Philadelphia landscape architect, and educator. Diane has continued to fulfill and expand John’s mission of propagating and providing native plants to homeowners, non-profits, and local townships. Diane studied art at Rhode Island School of Design and Boston University and has an MA in art education from New York University. She draws on her experience as a teacher to help educate customers about the benefits of native plants. An enthusiastic gardener, Diane went back to school at Temple University/Ambler to study horticulture in 2004 and soon after, went to work helping John in his backyard nursery. She has worked as a gardener, at a local garden center, and has done ongoing volunteer work with the Friends of High School Park, a native plant restoration project in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. In addition, Diane is a botanical artist and a member of the Philadelphia Society of Botanical Illustrators and the American Society of Botanical Artists.

Richard McCoy has over 30-years of experience in the green industry. He is the visionary behind Richard A. McCoy Horticultural Services Inc., founded in 1995. Since transitioning from conventional to organic landscape methods in 2005, McCoy Horticultural has been offering environmentally and sustainably responsible, landscape design, installations, maintenance, green infrastructure, and organic lawn care.

His work at Stony Wood Garden, a 3.5-acre private woodland garden in Princeton, New Jersey, has been recognized by The Smithsonian Institute's Archives of American Gardens.

Abra Lee is a national speaker, writer, and owner of Conquer the Soil a platform that combines Black garden history and current events to raise awareness of horticulture. She has spent a whole lotta time in the dirt as a municipal arborist, extension agent, airport landscape manager, and more. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University and alumna of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals.

Max Blaustein is an Environmental Scientist with the Philadelphia Department of Parks & Recreation's Natural Lands Management team. His work has focused on the restoration and operation of a historic nursery facility in West Fairmount Park, where he propagates native plants for conservation projects that support the ecosystem function and habitat value of the 5,600 acres of natural areas within the City of Philadelphia.

Robin Rick has been a Woodlands Grave Gardener since 2016 and The Woodlands' Facility and Landscape Manager since 2018. It is with great pleasure and purpose that Robin works to care for the locally andnationally significant treasure that is The Woodlands. She brings to the  position professional experience in architecture and horticulture. After a career in architecture, she worked as a residential gardener and attended the Barnes Foundation Arboretum School where she earned a Certificate of Horticulture.  At TheWoodlands Robin's responsibilities bridge the two disciplines - helping maintain the site's historically significant features  - buildings and trees - while welcoming daily use by the West Philly community and other visitors.

Jordan Foreman grew up in Central Jersey just a stone's throw from Six Mile Run. He has always loved to hike in the woods, but it wasn't until he was a student at Rutgers University that Ecology became his passion. He was an intern at Rutgers Gardens at the University, and he interned at Central Park in New York City through college. Then, Jordan spent a year as an AmeriCorps Watershed Ambassador before he discovered the Professional Horticulture Program at Longwood Gardens with the help of the kind folks at the Delaware River Basin Commission. After finishing Longwood's Professional Horticulture Program, Jordan moved to Durham, North Carolina to become an Arborist for Bartlett Tree Experts. Currently, Jordan is a Foreman and Plant Healthcare Specialist for Bartlett where he continues to inspire people through his passion for plants.

Dale Hendricks has been growing and propagating plants professionally since 1975. In 1988 he co-founded North Creek Nurseries, Inc in order to propagate and grow perennials and grasses with an emphasis on natives and garden selections of natives. In 2009 he founded Green Light Plants, LLC to build carbon-friendly and regenerative landscapes; growing native, woodland, and permaculture plants, organically and joyfully. He has been honored with the American Horticulture Society’s Individual Commercial award and the Perennial Plant Association’s Young Professional Award, and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society award of merit. He has taught plant propagation at Longwood Gardens and lectures widely.

He served on the founding board of the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia and as co-chair from 2004-2007. He lives in Landenberg, Southern Chester County, Pennsylvania with his family where he gardens, propagates plants, and grows good soil.