Kevin Zuidervliet is owner and grower at Octoraro Native Plant Nursery, in Kirkwood, Pennsylvania. His diverse professional experience and passion for horticulture began while traveling and working on organic farms in Australia and New Zealand. He leveraged his skills in an AmeriCorps VISTA position managing a community garden. Kevin continued to hone his plant knowledge at Shaffer Landscapes, in Middleburg, Pennsylvania before earning a place in the Professional Horticulture Program at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. At Longwood, he gained in-depth experience in woody plant propagation and management, later transitioning to a full-time Nursery Horticulturist role.

Kevin has come full circle at Octoraro, where he is using his skill sets to create regional plant palettes for designers, ecologists, and others in the industry to maintain, enhance, and recreate lost habitats in the region.   

Steven Kiiskila is the Crop and Growing Team Manager at Arbutus Grove Nursery, located at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Each year his team grows 15 million container seedlings composed of 18 or more species, primarily for reforestation throughout Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in reforestation his entire career; from collecting seeds to organizing and monitoring tree planting programs, although his primary focus has been growing seedlings at various nurseries throughout B.C. While employed as a Seedling Reforestation Specialist, he advised nurseries and tree seed orchards on growing practices. In this role, he also guided foresters and others planting trees on seedling stocktype selection and planting practices and established numerous outplanting trials to search for answers in overcoming reforestation challenges.

Steven loves the combination of art and science used to grow forest seedlings, and the fact that as a grower he is always learning something new. One of his favorite tree growing sayings is: “Growing trees is not rocket science, it’s much harder.” He has a Master of Science degree in Forest Biology from the University of Victoria, a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture, horticulture major from the University of Guelph, and a Horticulture Diploma from Olds, College.