I grew up the Chicago suburbs, and attended college in Wisconsin, California and New York. I have a BA in Human Relations, a BS in English and an MAT in English Education. I have been married since 1976 and have two grown sons.

In my twenties, I felt a mystical kinship with roses, through reading and art, though I had never grown them. I was fascinated by their ubiquity, beauty, sensuality, spiritual significance and healing properties. All my art and poetry was signed with a stylized rose icon or with the pseudonym rosa rugosa.

After purchasing a home in upstate New York in 1989, I became an avid gardener, but became enthralled with roses only after attending a presentation by Lily Shohan, Northeast Regional Coordinator of the Heritage Rose Group in early 1995. Lily was showing slides of her tour of English rose gardens.

I began to inundate myself with the study of roses through research, discussion, and visits to private and public gardens. I was an active early member of the Centrally Isolated Rosarians, a group of heirloom rose gardeners in Ithaca, New York, and began writing on the subject.

In the summer of 1996, I moved to central North Carolina and have become a “virtual rosarian.” I have been privileged to encounter several prominent rosarians through the internet, including Charles Walker, Cheryl Netter, Steve Jones, Marily Young, Jeremy Buckley and the regulars at alt.garden.roses, all of whom have taught me much about rosa.

From April 96 to July 97, I was the Garden Editor of CyberMom Dot Com -- a webzine for parents of young children -- for which I wrote a variety of gardening articles. My current writing project is a series on heirloom roses for the ARS website and an article on rose hips. I’m a member of the UNC Botanic Garden and the American Rose Society. My article series on the Old Garden Roses for the American Rose Society has brought responses from rose-lovers all around the world. My newest enterprise is a garden design business called Alternative Roses.