“I met the secretary of the Walcha Garden Club on a Botanica River cruise in Europe in 2012 where I was the horticultural guide. On the tours and cruises I flesh out the gardens and talk about the plants and what makes them special,” she said.

Judy has worked for Yates for sixteen years as the Yates communication manager.  She is the editor of Yates Garden Guide, the best selling gardening book in Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Yates newsletters and gardening calendar.  

Judy has written two gardening books and many articles for gardening magazines as well as appearing as a regular on TV and 2UE with Don Burke and Tim Webster.

Originally a schoolteacher, she studied horticulture in the early 1980s and is a member of the Australian Institute of Horticulture and the Horticultural Media Association. 

Her topic at the Walcha Garden Club lunch will be garden history and great North American gardeners plus North American plants.

“North America is a big continent with many climatic extremes which means that many American plants have evolved to tolerate the heat, cold and dryness we experience in so many parts of Australia,” Judy said.

“I was particularly interested last year to visit the Idaho Botanic Garden which showcases the plants catalogued by explorers Lewis and Clark as they travelled through the area in the early 1800s.”

Judy says that adaptable plants like Californian poppies, ceanothus, snowberry, choisya, rudbeckia, gaillardia and cannas are all tough American plants that grow well in our gardens.

Married to Rob with two children and five grandchildren she still occasionally gets time to enjoy her own rather untidy garden on five acres at Dural.

Judy will speak at the Walcha Garden Club lunch on September 5.