Recalling a childhood spent outdoors, Suzanne fondly remembers helping turn the soil in her dad’s vegetable garden and wandering the paths in the woodland gardens her mom lovingly tended. Always curious about nature and science, Suzanne studied geology at Tufts University; later, she pursued her love of plants by taking courses as diverse as forest pathology, soil fertility and marine botany.

Suzanne began her garden writing career more than 20 years ago, when she worked for the nonprofit National Gardening Association’s Education Department — the precursor of what is now KidsGardening.org — to help promote their flagship GrowLab program. During her 13 years at NGA, Suzanne also wrote a regional gardening column and answered thousands of gardening questions submitted via their website. She’s especially fascinated by the intersection of botany and horticulture — the science that informs what we do as gardeners — and loves to spark that curiosity in others.

Her home gardens are filled with edibles, flowers, and, as Emerson puts it, “plants whose virtues have not yet been discovered,” also known as weeds.