Stephen Ryan - MC
Well known as the previous host of Gardening Australia on ABC TV and his regular radio slots on ABC Radio Melbourne, and his over three decades on 3CR Radio broadcasting from Collingwood.
He has written several books and contributed to several more including the tomes Botanica and Flora. Also has written multitudes of articles for newspapers and magazines starting at the age of eighteen.
President of the Mt. Macedon and district Horticultural Society, life member of the Horticultural Media Association and current president of Plant Trust, a body that registers collections around Australia.
Patron of both the Royal Horticultural soc. of Victoria and the Friends of the Geelong Botanic Gardens.
Lover of travel that now takes garden tours for Australians Studying Abroad to such far flung places as Madagascar, North West France, and Madiera and the Azores.
Of course, he is best known as the owner of Dicksonia Rare Plants at Mt. Macedon which was started in 1980 and the joint owner of Tugurium a garden that is open for tours and regularly for Open Gardens Victoria.
Now becoming well known for his YouTube Chanel “The Horti-Culturalists” which he hosts with Matthew Lucas and now has well over twenty two thousand subscribers from around the world.
John Arnott - Mr Botanic Gardens
If a person could be called Mister Botanic Gardens it would have to be John Arnott. For over 35 years his horticultural career has encompassed a diverse range of roles from technical through to managerial but all in the public garden sector. During this period he has made significant contributions to the development and management of a number of Australia’s premier public gardens and horticultural institutions.
He is widely recognised as an industry leader in the management of botanic/public gardens. His career started at the Melbourne Zoo at a time when the zoo was creating naturalistic enclosures, the first of which was the gorilla enclosure. Another exhibit was the butterfly house, where none of the insects would survive without the correct plants being included. These enclosure sparked a passion for plants and their importance in the environment.
He has recently retired as the manager of horticulture at the Royal Botanic Garden Cranbourne - an award-winning, showpiece garden of Australian native flora. He felt it was his dream job where he could work with plants and watch other people grow in their horticultural careers. John believes botanic gardens will perform an increasingly important role in conservation horticulture as our climate changes. He is proud of his involvement in developing world famous gardens right here in Melbourne. He will be sharing some of his favourite plants and garden displays.
Merryle Johnson
Merryle has a life-long addiction to flowers, colour and designing with plants. Merryle developed her love of plants and nature on the family farm in central Victoria, and has gone on to build up a seed and plant collection of some of the most beautiful and unusual plants from around the world. With her new web site that allows others to share the wonder, her Seedscape business has taken off.
Merryle has spent a lifetime collecting and working with unusual and hardy perennial plants, many of which are grown by seed.
David van Berkel
David is a third-generation nursery industry businessman and has been working for VanBerkel Distributors since the age of 16 years. David VanBerkel has been an integral reason for the success of the VanBerkel business for the last 70 years and therefore the business’ 70years of contribution to the Australian gardening industry. David is a bulb expert and has a strong passion for the conservation of ‘old world’ bulbs and various specialty bulbs to prevent their disappearance within Australia.
David’s conservation achievements extend notably with The Wollemi Pine since it was initially discovered in 1994 as 100 trees in the wild. Van Berkel Distributors were involved from 1995 to support the distribution during the initial public release in 1996. Since then, David’s devotion, time and effort to continually promote, propagate and distribute the world’s oldest tree and Australia’s most famous native plant is an industry historical achievement. Only 30 years ago the Wollemi Pine was thought to be extinct. VanBerkel Distributors has been a part of the conservation effort of the tree and since 1995, but has been the sole commercial propagator and distributor since 2004 within Australia and global custodians of the brand worldwide.
Over the last 20+ years David’s creation, Garden Express, has grown to be the largest online webstore in the southern hemisphere, employing up to 80 local employees during peak periods of the year, with a full-time staff of around 65 employees and reaching 350,000 customers nationwide in the pursuit of making gardening accessible to everyone!
Clive Larkman
Clive has worked in horticulture since travelling across Asia, UK and USA. With a degree in Biology, diploma in Philosophy.
He and his family, have built Larkman Nurseries and Romantic Nursery into key production nurseries and the Herb-Chilli Festival into a major event.
He sat on key Agribusiness bodies: NGIV, IPPS, Primary Training, AIH, TALGA, AgYV, VAC and a local councillor and was International IPPS president.
Clive has a passion for plants and cooking and gets satisfaction from teaching how to grow and use herbs. His philosophy is, life is for living and knowledge is for sharing.
Vasili Kanidiadis
Kanidiadis grew up in Coburg in Melbourne's north. He began broadcasting on Greek radio station 3XY for 7 years before moving to Channel 31 He has studied structural engineering, classical piano and horticulture.
Vasili is a much loved garden expert who has run garden centers, help develop products and made thousands of videos for TV and YouTube about plant and garden health. Roughly half way through his career he had a complete change in garden philosophy and hasn't looked back since.
Ben Brooker
Ben Brooker is passionate about studying the problems we face in our gardens and looks holistically at the root causes, concentrating on the health of our soils & their improvement, eliminating any need for chemical herbicides, pesticides & fungicides.
He is a collector and grower of a wide range of rare, unusual and just stunning perennial plants. His nursery and garden is in Gippsland.
Miranda Mueller
Miranda Mueller is a permaculturalist and herbalist who lives a simple life in the leafy surrounds of the Yarra Valley.
Co author of ‘Plants of Power’ a reference book encouraging people to bring their herbs and plant friends inside to the kitchen bench to create for wellness.
Miranda enjoys working with plants, teaching people how to grow plants for themselves with their own health in mind. Passionate about the simple joy of brewing a herbal tea, or creating a home remedy from the plants that are closest to your door step.
Plenty of plant wisdom to share, you’ll find Miranda with books to sign while sharing a practical, hands on display of seasonal herbal tea recipes on the day..
David Liddle
David Liddle is an expert plantscaper who has been working in the industry for 20 years. David presents on Outdoors/Indoors in Adelaide, writes for Vasilis magazine and absolutely loves the garden.