Jacki Hart

Jacki Hart is an Ontario-based management consultant and conference speaker, with years of industry experience. Hart founded Water’s Edge Landscaping in 1992, which she ran for over 20 years before selling the business. She has received 25 Provincial Awards of Excellence, and has served as director, executive committee treasurer and vice president on a number of boards.

In addition to being a certified consultant (for the Landscape Management Network), Hart is the author of a monthly business management column, numbering over 130 articles. She also manages Landscape Ontario’s Prosperity Partners and Peer to Peer Network, and sits as the the treasurer for the Friends of the Muskoka Watershed/Muskoka Freshwater Foundation.

Paul Zammit

Paul Zammit, a graduate of the University of Guelph, is the Nancy Eaton Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden. He is an energetic and passionate speaker who is much in demand and has presented across Canada and in the United States. In recent years, Paul has presented in Germany, Switzerland, Bermuda and South Africa. He has appeared on numerous occasions both on television and in print.

For the summers of 2016 through 2018, Paul has had a weekly gardening column providing gardening advice on the CBC Here and Now radio program. In October of 2014, Paul lead a 10-day garden and food tour on the island of Sicily. Together with Marjorie Mason, he will be leading a tour in England in 2019. In February 2016, Paul and his wife participated in a week of gardening study at Great Dixter in England. In 2017, Garden Making magazine selected them both as two of Canada’s top 20 people shaping gardens across Canada.

Paul has been awarded the Young Professionals award by the Perennial Plant Association. He is also the recipient of an Industry Service Award and in 2019 was awarded the Garden Communicator Award. Paul is as eager to continue to learn as he is to share his passion with all.

Sharon Hadden

Sharon has been involved in the horticultural industry for over 30 years, during which she owned her own everlasting flower farm and designed gardens for private clients. She studied Horticulture at Otley College in the UK and for a diploma in Botanical drawing at the prestigious Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

Sharon moved to the US Midwest from the UK five years ago and ran Allisonville Garden and Home’s hugely successful Grab & Go department as well as their container gardening department. She works with multiple TV stations and is the Garden Guru on FOX59 Indianapolis’s Morning Show.

Sharon also writes a monthly column about how to set up and run a profitable G&G department for the Independent Garden Centre magazine and lectures at the prestigious IGC trade show in Chicago. She consults with independent garden centres on how to set up and run their own G&G departments, and is excited to have been invited to be a judge for America In Bloom this year. When off work, Sharon practices yoga and travels back to the UK regularly.

Matthew Williams

Matthew Williams is a certified Red Seal electrician with a broad range of experience. Matt has spent the majority of his professional career performing commercial lighting maintenance with a focus on lighting aesthetic in grocery and boutique store installations. Additionally, Matt has experience in low voltage lighting system control.

Matt joined ProSource in 2017 as a specification and product training rep. Working as a consultant to landscape architects and designers, Matt loves to see the impact low voltage lighting systems can have on beautiful landscape installations. Matt’s unique experience and skill set give him intuitive insight into the practical and design applications of landscape lighting.

Matt is a busy father of two. He keeps himself busy biking and running around the Lower Mainland, searching for the next challenge.

Ra Gadd

Ra Gadd helps garden centers sell interior foliage, coaching all team members in optimizing their departments, events, custom service menus, and marketing communications activities.

She consults businesses as well as individuals to build confidence in choosing and caring for plants appropriate for indoor applications. Having prepared and executed televised gardening presentations, she also teaches classes, demonstrations, and workshops about horticulture to individuals and groups of all sizes.

Before managing the houseplant department, where she increased sales by over 260% during her five-year tenure, she designed and maintained custom containers and campus gardens at Allisonville Garden & Home. She was an independent gardener in the private residential sector for 10 years. She studied Studio Fine Arts at Anderson University with a concentration in photography. She lives on White River in Fishers, Indiana with her husband and their dog, Hazel.

Tom McConkey

Tom McConkey has been involved with landscaping and landscape soils for over 25 years. During this time, the use of compost and other organic amendments blended with sand has become a mainstay of the landscaping industry: engineered or manufactured topsoil has become the norm. Dirt is a four-letter word for Tom while soil is “the good stuff.” While many are fixated on foliage and flowers, Tom can often be caught staring at the ground. The growing medium is the base of any great landscape – and not all soil is created equal.

Paul Zammit

Paul Zammit, a graduate of the University of Guelph, is the Nancy Eaton Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden. He is an energetic and passionate speaker who is much in demand and has presented across Canada and in the United States. In recent years, Paul has presented in Germany, Switzerland, Bermuda and South Africa. He has appeared on numerous occasions both on television and in print.

For the summers of 2016 through 2018, Paul has had a weekly gardening column providing gardening advice on the CBC Here and Now radio program. In October of 2014, Paul lead a 10-day garden and food tour on the island of Sicily. Together with Marjorie Mason, he will be leading a tour in England in 2019. In February 2016, Paul and his wife participated in a week of gardening study at Great Dixter in England. In 2017, Garden Making magazine selected them both as two of Canada’s top 20 people shaping gardens across Canada.

Paul has been awarded the Young Professionals award by the Perennial Plant Association. He is also the recipient of an Industry Service Award and in 2019 was awarded the Garden Communicator Award. Paul is as eager to continue to learn as he is to share his passion with all.

Sharon Hadden

Sharon has been involved in the horticultural industry for over 30 years, during which she owned her own everlasting flower farm and designed gardens for private clients. She studied Horticulture at Otley College in the UK and for a diploma in Botanical drawing at the prestigious Chelsea Physic Garden in London.

Sharon moved to the US Midwest from the UK five years ago and ran Allisonville Garden and Home’s hugely successful Grab & Go department as well as their container gardening department. She works with multiple TV stations and is the Garden Guru on FOX59 Indianapolis’s Morning Show.

Sharon also writes a monthly column about how to set up and run a profitable G&G department for the Independent Garden Centre magazine and lectures at the prestigious IGC trade show in Chicago. She consults with independent garden centres on how to set up and run their own G&G departments, and is excited to have been invited to be a judge for America In Bloom this year. When off work, Sharon practices yoga and travels back to the UK regularly.

Dr. Linda Chalker Scott

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott has a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State
University and is an ISA certified arborist and an ASCA consulting arborist. She
is WSU’s Extension Urban Horticulturist and an Associate Professor in the
Department of Horticulture, and holds two affiliate associate professor
positions at University of Washington. She conducts research in applied plant
and soil sciences, publishing the results in scientific articles and university
Extension fact sheets.

Linda also is the award-winning author of five books: the horticultural myth-
busting The Informed Gardener (2008) and The Informed Gardener Blooms
Again (2010) from the University of Washington Press and Sustainable
Landscapes and Gardens: Good Science – Practical Application (2009) from GFG
Publishing, Inc., and How Plants Work: The Science Behind the Amazing Things
Plants Do from Timber Press (2015). Her latest effort is an update of Art
Kruckeberg’s Gardening with Native Plants of the Pacific Northwest from UW
Press (2019).

In 2018 Linda was featured in a video series – The Science of Gardening –
produced by The Great Courses. She also is one of the Garden Professors – a
group of academic colleagues who educate and entertain through their blog
and Facebook pages. Linda’s contribution to gardeners was recognized in 2017
by the Association for Garden Communicators as the first recipient of their
Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award.