Robert Rolfe is a 49-year-old identical twin who gardens on the outskirts of Nottingham, the English Midlands town best known for Robin Hood, its high proportion of women to men, and, if you believe TV documentaries, its chaotically drunken night life. He has won 14 prestigious Farrer medals, and has judged Alpine Garden Society plants shows for the past 20 years. The recipient of the Lyttel Trophy, he is Assistant Editor of the AGS Bulletin and author of The Alpine House.
Beryl Bland, a world-class authority on Silver Saxifrages, is the holder of the National Collection, the most extensive collection of these plants in the UK. She is author of a monograph on Silver Saxes published by AGS, has written extensively about them in rock garden journals, and has lectured widely on them.
Peter Bland is a long-time member of the Alpine Garden Society where he has served in various capacities on its seed exchange and world conferences while chairing his local chapter as well. He gardens on two acres near the northwest coast of England where he grows over 300 species of rhododendrons and a wide collection of alpines. Currently he is involved in the Kew Gardens scheme to reintroduce Cypripedium calceolus to its wild habitat, from which it has almost disappeared.
Rick Lupp is founder and proprietor of Mt. Tahoma Nursery, Graham, WA. Though trained as a Clinical Psychologist, he chose a gardening career instead when he founded his internationally famous nursery in 1986. A dedicated mountain climber, he became infatuated with alpines through his many climbs in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska and has put together an alpine list that is legendary among rock gardeners. He gardens on 17 acres of wooded abandoned pasture where he maintains a woodland garden and a series of remarkable sand beds in which he displays his alpine treasures.
British-born John Lonsdale is a biochemist and microbiologist by profession but an avid alpine gardener by choice. Born in Sheffield, England, he moved to the Southeast coast after college and won his rock gardening spurs through competitive showing at both local and national shows. He won the coveted Gold Merit Medal in 1995, making a virtual art of container growing plants in greenhouses and cold frame. He moved to the US in 1995, where he gardens 1.5 acres in Exton, Pennsylvania, specializing in Cyclamen, Fritillaria, Daphne, and many rare bulbs.
Abbie Zabar is the noted designer-artist-writer of a series of books that have enchanted gardeners with the homespun practicality of one who proudly proclaims to be "self-taught." While she has gardened in-ground on Massachusetts' Nantucket Island, she is most at home in the alpine zone of Manhattan where she coaxes tiny treasures to bloom in her second penthouse garden. Her book The Potted Herb introduced her wit, charm, wisdom and finely crafted line drawings to more than 60,000 buyers.
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