Finding Your Purpose, Forging Your Path: A conversation with Abra Lee and Ellen Zachos

Who are you and what makes you special? Why should people listen to you instead of the thousands of other voices out there? Each one of us has a well-developed specialty, a singular passion, a unique voice. Which means we each have something special to offer. But before we can reach our audience, before we can create our tribe, we have to understand our WHY. The WHY is the compass that gives focus and meaning to everything we do. Each decision you make is filtered through the WHY, helping you cut through the clutter and design your path. This isn’t a quick and easy fix. Finding your purpose takes time and dedication. But once you’ve defined your WHY, once you’ve discovered your purpose, work is no longer work. The joy of doing what you love is priceless. And when you’ve figured out your WHY, when you’ve found your purpose, your people will find you. And isn’t that why we all do what we do?

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Meet the Speakers 

Abra Lee is the owner of Conquer the Soil a community that celebrates horticulture beyond plants. She has spent a whole lotta time in the dirt as an estate gardener, greenhouse assistant, garden shop employee, municipal arborist, county extension agent, and landscape manager for two international airports. Lee is a graduate of Auburn University College of Agriculture and an alumni of the Longwood Gardens Society of Fellows, a global network of public horticulture professionals.  

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 shares plant profiles, 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 is also the co-host of the Plantrama podcast, with C.L. Fornari. 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.

What's New Showcase - Part 1

National Garden Bureau (NGB) has been presenting new plant varieties and garden products from their members for the past 35 years. Now more than ever, it’s important to stay up-to-date on the new plants and products that National Garden Bureau members are bringing to the market. Diane Blazek, Executive Director of NGB combines both live goods and hards goods in two separate and different sessions (you'll need to see both to get the full array!). These items for 2021 were supposed to be introduced at in-person spring and summer industry events but with those events canceled, you can be one of the first garden communicators to see these varieties by participating in this two-part webinar. No one else will see these new items until November when the NGB website goes live.

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Meet the Speaker  
Diane Blazek 

Diane Blazek, Executive Director of All-America Selections® and National Garden Bureau. For more than 30 years, Diane has been immersed in gardening both personally and professionally. She brings a passion to the subject based on a history in the field of horticulture publishing as well as a love for gardening and culinary exploration. Growing up on a small family farm in northern Missouri, Diane spent years helping her parents plant, tend and harvest a large home vegetable garden. As the president and publisher at Ball Publishing for 15 years, she led the way in connecting the commercial side of the industry with consumers via the live focus groups called Consumer Buzz Live! Diane also managed Ball Publishing’s entry into consumer garden book publishing. Since December of 2009, Diane has been leading both All-America Selections and National Garden Bureau through an exciting period of growth as they establish themselves as inspirational resources in the minds of garden communicators, public gardens, growers, garden retailers and home gardeners. All-America Selections has doubled in size with the addition of trials for Vegetative Ornamentals and Herbaceous Perennials, an expanded website, more Display Gardens and an ever-increasing social media presence. National Garden Bureau has also more than doubled in size with the addition of new programs, social media, therapeutic garden grants and new membership categories. With both organizations, the connection to the consumer is of topmost importance and by using that connection, she provides direction and insights to the industry as well as to GardenComm, an organization for Garden Communicators where she serves as a National Director.

Mind Your Gaps: Your Digital Audit Action Plan with Katie Elzer-Peters

Fine-tuning your digital platform is more important now than ever before. Katie Elzer-Peters from Garden of Words will show you how to assess the current state of your business and teach you the steps needed to take it to the next level. This session will cover free tools to help you identify problem areas online, the best ways to close any gaps, and how to create content to convert your online audience into paying customers. Learn how to leverage the written word online, including long-form blogging, copywriting to “sell” through email, and engaging Instagram captions. Audience members will get practical tips and actionable steps to implement immediately, so they can set up their businesses for long-term success. 

Katie Elzer-Peters has been gardening since she could walk, a hobby—turned career—nurtured by her parents and grandparents. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Horticulture from Purdue University, and a Master of Science in Public Garden Management from the Longwood Graduate Program at Longwood Gardens and the University of Delaware. After school, Katie served as a horticulturist, head of gardens, educational programs director, development officer, and manager of botanical gardens around the United States. Katie has authored nine books for Cool Springs Press, and she serves as the Editor in Chief of The Designer, the quarterly journal of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Katie is a frequent contributor to Green Profit and writes web and print content for growers, breeders, and retailers in the green industry. She has ghost written several books for a variety of publishers. She helps GWA members create websites, set up digital online courses, and helps authors self-publish their books. Today, Katie lives and gardens with her husband and dogs in the coastal city of Wilmington, North Carolina, (zone 8) where she owns The Garden of Words, LLC, a marketing firm specializing in green-industry clients. When not working, Katie is an obsessive reader and art appreciator.

What's New Showcase - Part 2

In What’s New Part 2, there are no duplications! National Garden Bureau had such a great response from members that Part 2 of "What's New" will be the second half of all the new garden products and plants coming for 2021. Join us for an early look at products that typically would have been presented at summer shows and that will be available for consumers next year.

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New Trends In Breeding

Join a group of innovative breeding company representatives who will discuss the latest plant breeding trends. We have Proven Winners/Color Choice, Ball/PanAm and Syngenta who will share thier expertise. This newly added session will be moderated by Diane Blazek of All-America Selections and National Garden Bureau. You can expect to learn more about what consumer needs they are fulfilling with their breeding, what is the latest technology being used by breeders, and what role the environment plays in their breeding work. This will be a quick and interesting look into the world of both creativity and science!

Market Segmentation: Communicating to Different Horticultural Audiences with April Thompson, Bloom Soil

Part of being a great communicator is knowing your audience. This session, led by April Thompson from Bloom Marketing, will allow for a hands-on look at how to identify and appeal to audiences with different horticultural needs and levels of expertise including landscapers, home gardeners, farmers, garden retailers and more. April will share tips and resources to help participants to identify segments within their general audience and ensure they are offering the right mix of content to appeal to the diversity in their midst.

GardenComm Media Award Winners 

GardenComm Honors and Awards Presentation