Meet Our Instructors

Leonard Basaraba

Leonard is a member of the BC Fruit Testers Association with a long-time interest in propagating and cultivating heritage apples.

Estelle Bogoch

Estelle is an experienced horticulturist and design consultant. She has taught a full college horticulture and landscape design program, and trains groundskeepers for a Metro Vancouver school district.

Brian Campbell

Brian, a Certified Bee Master, is well known for his extensive knowledge of bees and beekeeping. He is dedicated to teaching the importance of bees in our ecosystem and food security to students of all ages.

Catherine Dale

Catherine Dale is SOUL certified in Organic Land care principles. She speaks frequently to groups on growing great lawns.

Egan Davis

Egan is as passionate teacher and gardener, and is responsible for the Eastern North American collection, Cypress pond, the maples and the Southern Hemisphere and Mediterranean gardens at VanDusen.

Bettina Harvey

Bettina is a professional horticulturist and garden designer with a background in Visual Arts. She has worked with the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation since 1990.

Maria Keating

Maria has been working with insects for over 15 years, and is currently known as the “Bug Lady” for City Farmer. She works as a Biological Control Consultant for the commercial floriculture and vegetable greenhouse industry.

Ron Long

Ron was a professional photographer at Simon Fraser University for 36 years. He has also taught photography in the Continuing Education program Kwantlen College.

Janis Matson

Janis has owned and operated Shoreline Landscape Design for over 18 years. As a designer, and nature lover, she enjoys the challenge of making garden spaces look and feel good.

Karen Myskiw

Karen is an educator and landscape designer with a consulting practice, JardinsDesigns. Her passions fuse areas of design, ecological gardening and cooking.

Susan Pearson

Susan, an accomplished watercolour artist, has been teaching watercolour techniques since 1993. She is as adept at teaching advanced students as she is with beginners.

Cynthia Sayre

Cynthia is Curator of Collections at VanDusen Botanical Garden, where her knowledge of plants is well utilized. An experienced botanical educator, Cynthia takes great pleasure in helping the public to be amazed by plants.

Claudia Schaefer

Claudia has a Master's degree in plant ecology. She specializes in mapping and describing rare plants and threatened ecosystems. Claudia has lived on Bowen Island for 12 years.

Shelagh Smith

Shelagh is a registered horticultural therapist, a long time professional gardener with a certificate in counseling skills and a MA in Environmental Education and Communication. She leads HT education programs at several institutions, runs HT activities throughout the city and works for Vancouver Coastal Health.

Terry Taylor

Terry is an experienced botanist and regular contributor to B.C. Naturalist, Discovery and Mycofile. He leads hikes for Nature Vancouver, the Mycological Society and other natural history groups.

Nyssa Temmel

Nyssa is a PhD Candidate in UBC’s Botany department with a lifelong fascination with plants and extensive teaching experience within the university.

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