Here are authors of books published by B. B. MACKEY BOOKS, arranged alphabetically.

Monica Brandies is the author of countless newspaper and magazine articles on numerous topics and about a dozen books. Four of them were published by B. B. Mackey Books. Monica is the author of two books for Florida gardeners, Herbs and Spices for Florida Gardens and Florida Gardening: the Newcomer's Survival Manual. She collaborated with Betty Mackey for the third edition of A Cutting Garden for Florida, released in November, 2001. She wrote a warmly humorous memoir, Bless You for the Gifts, which takes the reader along the path from school to nine babies to living and gardening in Florida. Other books to which Monica contributed include Xeriscaping for Florida Homes (Great Outdoors Publishing), Sprouts and Saplings (memoir and advice, Strawberry Hill Press), The Florida Gardener's Book of Lists (Taylor Publishing), All About Trees and All About Groundcovers (Ortho Books), and Step-by-Step Landscaping (Better Homes & Gardens). She has written Shade Gardening for Florida published by Great Outdoors. Monica grew up in Xenia, Ohio, near Dayton, and lived on a farm for most of her childhood. She attended a small Catholic school before studying at the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture, now part of Temple University. For more information, go to her website, gardensflorida.com.

Joyce Fingerut is coauthor of the award-winning book, Creating and Planting Garden Troughs. Joyce Fingerut is past President of the North American Rock Garden Society, and has been involved in its International Speakers Tour Project. A Philadelphia native, Joyce Fingerut's horticultural career follows her first degree and career in psychology research and data analysis. She is also a graduate of the program at the Arboretum of the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, and has taken additional coursework in Landscape Design and Construction at Delaware Valley College of Science and Agriculture and at Longwood Gardens. She recently edited The Trough Handbook for the North American Rock Garden Society. She has designed and built award-winning exhibits for the Philadelphia Flower Show from 1980 to 1996, with emphasis on rock garden plants and alpine troughs. She gives lectures and workshops in various aspects of trough making and horticulture for organizations and arboreta throughout eastern North America. She authored portions of the book, Rock Garden Design and Construction published by Timber Press in 2003. It, too, won an award from the American Horticultural Society.

Lucy Fuchs is the author of a delightful book of poems, In Another Light (2002, B. B. Mackey Books. A psychiatric social worker who was born in New York, she has come to poetry by way of the garden. Her writing has appeared in many national magazines including Fine Gardening. A collection of her garden essays was published in the book, Confessions of a Gardener. She and her husband live in Ambler, Pennsylvania. She was awarded first prize in poetry in 2000 by the Imperium Proviso Press. Her poems have appeared in Northeast Corridor, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Cease, and Aurorean. Her poetry celebrates the mystery and wonder that exist alongside the ordinariness of everyday life.

Pat Kite has a way of clarifying complex subjects and has written a number of nonfiction books for children and adults. Several of her books have been winners of awards from the Garden Writers Association of America. Her newest book is Gardener's Favorites: 600 Essential Plants for Your Garden, written with coauthor Teri Dunn. Pat wrote A Cutting Garden for California with Betty Mackey, being the California half of the team. Pat lives and gardens in Newark, California, where she is also interested in planning and zoning and the teaching of writing. She is best known for her expertise in organic gardening and pest control. She is the author of Controlling Lawn and Garden Insects, from Ortho Books and many other titles.

Betty Mackey gardens in the shade in Pennsylvania these days, but became interested in regional gardening after living in several states including Florida. Perhaps her best-known book is The Gardener's Home Companion published in 1991 by Macmillan, Barnes and Noble, and then as a paperback by Random House. Her illustrated book, Gardening Made Easy, came out in 2003 from Publications International. She co-wrote Cutting Gardens from Simon & Schuster. These days she is more of a publisher and editor, and is the founder and owner of B. B. Mackey Books. In late fall of 2001, she and Monica Brandies completed the third edition of their book, A Cutting Garden for Florida and have both enjoyed their Florida lectures based on the book. In March, 2002, she produced the book, Meadowbrook Farm by Charles Cresson, for Meadowbrook Farm, serving as editor and designer of the project. In 2000, her publication, Creating and Planting Garden Troughs, was named a Book Of The Year by the American Horticultural Society. In 2006, Creating and Planting Alpine Gardens, by Rex Murfitt, and edited by Betty, won a Silver Trowel award from the Garden Writers Association. Betty has also written for many newspapers and magazines and has been the garden columnist for The Hunt Magazine since 1994. In 2006 she wrote and produced two story CDs, Moments in the Garden and Making Papercrete Troughs. In October 2006 she released the North American edition of Alex Pankhurst's book, Who Does Your Garden Grow. Betty gives annual lectures on making troughs at the Philadelphia Flower Show. She led a papercrete workshop at Longwood Gardens in October, 2006 and will do another at Longwood in April, 2007.

Rex Murfitt is coauthor of Creating and Planting Garden Troughs. His most recent book, published in 2005, is Creating and Planting Alpine Gardens from B. B. Mackey Books. In 2006 it received a Silver Trowel award from the Garden Writers Association of America. Born in England, Rex trained as a nurseryman, later specializing in alpine plants at the famous W. E. Th. Ingwersen, Birch Farm Hardy Plant Nursery at Gravetye, Sussex. There, he trained under Walter Ingwersen VMH and his son Will Ingwersen VMH, who taught him the art of propagation and cultivation of alpine plants. He traveled widely with Will Ingwersen, building rock gardens for clients. From these great gardeners he learned the romance and lore of alpine plants. Later he worked in large English gardens including J. Spedan Lewis's gardens at Longstock Park in Hampshire, caring for the greenhouses and orchid collection, as well as a growing alpine collection. Eventually he became Head Gardener to Mrs. Constance Spry at Winkfield Place, near Windsor, where plants were grown for her world-famous flower arrangements. He helped develop her white garden, based on the one at Sissinghurst Castle. Under the guidance of Graham Stuart Thomas, he undertook the care of a large collection of old fashioned roses. He later moved to New York, and with Frank and Anne Cabot, started Stonecrop Nurseries Inc., at Cold Spring On Hudson, an alpine nursery based on English traditional methods. Stonecrop displayed rock gardens at Flower Shows in New York City and Philadelphia. Rex Murfitt now grows alpines for pleasure at home in Victoria, B.C., Canada. His particular interests include collecting saxifrages, and he has a growing love for North American alpines. When not in the garden, he devotes time to photographing alpine plants and recording the efforts of the distinguished alpine gardeners he was fortunate enough to have known. He frequently lectures and writes articles on alpine gardening.

Nellie Neal answers questions from gardeners every day. They seek out her smarts in the grocery check out line, at school events, and once in the ladies room at a concert. Known as The Garden Mama on her popular radio program, she fields queries about everything. She is a lifelong gardener, a talk radio host, garden writer, wife, and mother who learned to love okra at her grandfather's knee, grew her first begonia in third grade, and 99 kinds of tomatoes in the front yard one summer while studying horticulture at Louisiana State University. Her expertise in general horticultural subjects extends across the Southeast in USDA Zones 8, 9, 10 and the coastal areas of California, and is the result of more than twenty-five years of experience in both the businesses and pleasures of the field. Nellie has grown plants, bought and sold plants, tested new varieties, and helped sustain old ones. She has mowed lawns, watered greenhouses, and waited on customers in garden retail. Nellie writes and speaks from a solid educational background coupled with a lifetime of gardening successes and failures. She knows what works and is not afraid to say so. She knows because she grows some of everything from houseplants, perennials, annuals, and roses to trees, shrubs, and vegetables all year long. Her favorite flower is whatever is in bloom today and the quest to fill the year with color, texture, and food drives her garden style. She has gardened with Master Gardeners, Girl Scouts and third graders, adults who consult with her and enroll in her classes, youth diversion program offenders, people with disabilities, garden club ladies, professional practitioners, a host of neighbors and plant society members, and has learned valuable lessons from them all. Nel was co-publisher of the Loose Dirt newsletter and co-wrote several books before writing Questions and Answers for Deep South Gardeners. She continues to write for general magazines and nationalgardening.com plus regional magazines, Louisiana Gardener and Mississippi Gardener. Her website address is http://www.gardenmama.com.

Alex Pankhurst is a writer, photographer and lecturer. She has a cottage garden in England's picturesque Dedham Vale (Constable Country), and every year breaks her resolve not to buy more plants. Author of many garden articles and the books Who Does Your Garden Grow (biography) and Scoffing the Primroses (a witty novel with a horticultural theme), she has kindly allowed B. B. Mackey Books to bring out her now-classic book Who Does Your Garden Grow in paperback. It received critical and popular acclaim in England and the USA when it first was printed in hardcover in England in 1992. These days Alex is dreaming up another novel.

page updated 12/1/2006