Ed Lyon is a retired professional horticulturist and gardener with 25 years experience in the public garden field. He most recently served as Director of Reiman Gardens, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, a position from which he retired in May 2024. He was formally Director, Allen Centennial Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin.  His public garden career includes serving as Symposia & Special Programs Coordinator for Chicago Botanic Garden, Director of Education for Olbrich Botanical Gardens and Executive Director for the Rotary Botanical Gardens.

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Through Spellbound Garden Writing & Consultation, he writes and speaks for both public and professional audiences. He has written a book called "Growing the Midwest Garden" for Timber Press, released May, 2015. He has written the “Ask the Expert” column for Wisconsin Gardening magazine as well as feature articles plus a regular regional report on southern Wisconsin for Chicagoland Gardening plus feature articles and continues to write for State-by-State Gardening. Unfortunately those magazines are no longer in publication.

 

He continues to write for Fine Gardening and occasionally other national magazines . He teaches, lectures and has served as featured/keynote speaker for a number of conferences. He developed on-line multi-class tutorials on garden design for Garden Gate Magazine (AIM Publications) and on shade gardening for Fine Gardening magazine. The links and sample videos are included on this site.

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Most importantly, he is an avid gardener familiar with dirt under his fingernails.