Contributors<br >Steve Bender. One of the South s best-known garden writers，<br >Steve Bender is associate garden editor of Southern Living<br >magazine and has written for Southern Accents， Horticulture，<br >American Nurseryman， and American Horticulturist. A fre-<br >quent lecturer at garden symposia， he serves as chairman of<br >the Beautification Board in his hometown， Homewood， Ala-<br >bama. He wrote d~e essays on lawn care and pests and diseases，<br >contributed to the garden design essay， and served as con-<br >sultant for the plant encyclopedia.<br >Rita Buchanan. With training that combines botany and hor-<br >ticulture， Rita Buchanan has worked and gardened in Texas，<br >Colorado， Virginia， Connecticut， England， and Costa Rica.<br >She was a founding editor of Fine Gardening magazine and<br >now writes and edits for The Herb Companion and other<br >publications. As a gardener， she specializes in herbs， fragrant<br >plants， and flowers for cutting to make fresh and dried ar-<br >rangements. She was a general editor for this book.<br >Steve Buchanan. An illustrator specializing in natural history<br >subjects， Steve Buchanan does black-and-white drawings an~]<br >color paintings of plants， gardens， birds， insects， and outdoor<br >scenes. His work has appeared in Horticulture， Garden De-<br >sign， Fine Gardening. Scientific American， Organic Gardening，<br >the New York Times， and the Herb Companion and in several<br >books. He illustrated this volume.<br >Roger Holmes. Currently a free-lance writer and editor， Roger<br >Holnaes was the founding editor of Fine Gardenhtg magazine.<br >He was the editorial consultant for Taylor s Guide to Gar-<br >dening Techniques and acted as one of the general editors for<br >this book.<br >Sam and Carleen Jones. A professor of botany at the University<br >of Georgia from 1967 to 1991， Sam Jones has done extensive<br >research and writing on d~e native plants of the southeastern<br >United States. He is the coauthor， with the late Len Foote， of<br >Native Shrubs and Woody Vines o[ the Southeast (Timber<br >Press， 1989) and Gardening With Native Wild Flowers (Tim-<br >