Below are short biographies for each of the 2009 Aiken Garden Show speakers:

2009 Featured Speaker: Jenks Farmer

Augustus Jenkins Farmer, III
visit Jenks' website
Resume:
Moore Farms South Carolina
Curator and designer for one the most horticulturally sophisticated private gardens in the state -- a 25-acre garden with a staff of 9 horticulturists. Manages staff and botanical collections and plant databases, forestry, and long-term planning. Additional responsibilities include being the curator and designer of the owner’s Victorian era garden and cycad collection in Charleston.

Lushlife Nursery
Owns and operates a connoisseur’s nursery specializing in the sub-tropic genus of the amaryllis family, Crinum. We provide proven varieties, correctly named, healthy field grown crinums to horticulturists and botanical gardens throughout the US. We also ship crinum gift boxes to gardeners. This is a small, family-operated nursery with his partner Tom Hall, co-owner, as well as two nephews.

Writing and Lectures
Jenks lectures all over for groups as diverse as The Smithsonian Institute, Wave Hill Gardens to the Antique Rose Emporium and the Allendale Ladies Afternoon Social Club. His articles appear regularly in Carolina Gardener and in the past in Fine Gardening, Organic Gardening, Horticulture, American Nurseryman, and several scientific journals.

Education
MS -- Public Garden Management and Forestry, University of Washington
BS -- Horticulture, Clemson

Sid Mullis
Mr. Mullis has been a Georgia extension agent for 27 years. He writes a weekly garden column for the Augusta Chronicle and co-hosts a weekly call in radio show “The Lawn and Garden Hour”. He also provides information and answers for the Georgia Gardening Magazine in the “Ask the Expert” column. Mr. Mullis has a B.S. from the University of Georgia in Agricultural Economics and an M.S. in Public Administration from the Brenau University.

Doug Gregorie
Mr. Gregorie has a B.S. in Business Economics from the University of South Carolina. He is a native of the Aiken area, with roots in family farming. He has managed a local peanut farm and owned and operated a retail gardening center offering landscape services. Currently he manages the Augusta office of Patten Seed Company, which specializes in turf grass seed and sod, pecan trees, and landscape trees and shrubs, marketed world-wide.

Ron Brenneman
Mr. Brenneman has a B.S. in Biology and an M.S. in Wildlife Ecology from the Pennsylvania State University. Since 1997, he and his wife Dori have operated the store Birds and Butterflies in downtown Aiken. He has been a researcher with Clemson at Baruch Forest Science Institute (Georgetown, SC), a Forest Ecologist with the International Paper Company (in PA and NH) and a Director of Conservation Projects at the National Wild Turkey Federation ( Edgefield, SC). He has authored or co-authored more than 60 technical publications and articles.

Carl Tilson
A graduate of the University of South Carolina, Mr. Tilson is a full time biology teacher. He has grown orchids as a hobby and commercially for 15 years. He maintains a collection of about 80 species and hybrids from the USA, Europe, and Asia. He actively propagates these plants so others may experience these members of the plant kingdom without impacting protected populations.

David Scott
Mr. Scott has a B.S. in biology from Wofford State and an M.S. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia. He worked at the Institute of Ecology in Georgia before joining the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in 1984. His focus has been the ecology of pond-breeding amphibians in isolated wetlands. He continues experimental studies to better understand the factors that influence the dynamics of natural and human-impacted amphibian populations.

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