Fellows

A GardenComm Fellow is a member in good standing who has demonstrated exceptionally high degrees of skill, professional ethics and dedication to the objectives of GardenComm. Fellows are nominated by the membership, recommended by the Honors Committee and elected by the Board of Directors. Self-nominations are welcome.

2020 Honorees

Mary B. Good

Mary B. Good’s Wisconsin State Journal editor calls her “clever, confident, uninhibited”, her lawyer calls her “unforgettable, whimsical, and indefatigable,” and her daughter, Mimi, has three words to describe her, “fun, fun, fun”. Best of all Garden Comm calls her a 2020 FELLOW!!!! Or maybe in Mary’s case Fellowette!.

Washington, D.C. born and Chicago raised, our newest Fellowette gave 10 years of service to the association, then called GWAA, including two term Regional Directorship, and officer (secretary, treasurer, vice president, and president elect, after which she suffered a near-deadly bout with viral encephalitis and couldn’t go on to the presidency). She has been a member of our association for 51 years, and a writer of many garden magazine and newspaper columns and articles----enough to wallpaper a house, including a long-running 22 years with The Daily Herald, Chicago area, (The Potting Shed). She’s written 3 horticultural books, including a regional wildflower book and co-authored 2 Time-Life Garden Guides, (volume 5, Trees, volume 6, Flowering Houseplants) and was a winner of a host of writing awards, including a Quill and Trowel Award for Best Magazine Article. A notorious storyteller, Mary has written 2 books of fiction, as well.

 Mary is a proud graduate of the American School of Floral Art, Chicago, and used her combined talents to write a liturgical decoration column for years for the National Catholic Reporter, Celebration! Section, as well the Catholic Diocese of Superior, Wisconsin, and she served 18 years as head liturgical decorator at her parish in Woodruff, Wisconsin. With a special interest in art, and design, Mary received an AA from Nicolet College, Rhinelander, Wisconsin, attended Northwestern School of Journalism on a Chicago Workingman’s Scholarship from the Chicago Headline Club, attended Marquette University School of Journalism, got a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Wisconsin, and her M.S. in Horticulture at UW-Madison with the award of an Allen Scholarship

 Along her long journey through life, she has been a decorator, a landscape designer, an extension agent, a horticultural business owner, (sick houseplant doctor), a Wisconsin state Flower Show Judge, the p.r. girl for legendary peony breeder Carl Klehm of the Charles Klehm and Son Nursery, a Fellow in epigenetics with the Institute for Human Individuality, and started one of the first organic community gardens in the country.

Mary traveled deep into the Peruvian Amazon rainforest with a group of professionals searching for nearly-extinct flora and fauna, a movie-worthy experience, for sure. Mary is a member of the Wisconsin Academy of Science Arts and Letters and a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.  

One of Mary’s favorite memories was being selected as the Wisconsin delegate to the International Horticultural Congress in Honolulu, Hawaii in the 1980s.

Mary’s favorite interests include morel mushrooms, wildflowers, and insect-eating plants.   She does Zen Tangle, food art, collage, and collects royalties and dust!

Ellen Zachos

Ellen Zachos is a Harvard graduate and the author of seven books including Backyard Foraging: 65 Familiar Plants You Didn’t Know You Could Eat, and The Wildcrafted Cocktail. Her Backyard Forager calendar (for 2021) has just been published, and she writes a regular foraging column for Edible New Mexico magazine. Ellen also shares recipes and foraging tips on her website: www.backyardforager.com, and offers several online foraging courses at https://backyard-forager.thinkific.com/. A former Broadway performer (cast of Les Miz), Ellen was named a Great American Gardener by the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival. She has worked with The Botanist gin since 2014, teaching foraged mixology workshops across the US. Ellen is passionate about showing people how to use their wild harvests. She is currently working on a wild foods cookbook, and teaches wild cooking classes at foraging workshops and retreats across the United States. A long-time instructor at the New York Botanical Garden, she recently moved to Santa Fe, NM, and now splits her time between the desert southwest and the lush northeast. Ellen is also the co-host of the Plantrama podcast, with C.L. Fornari.

Past Honorees