Beth Buffington | Kathie Clements | Nina DeRosa | Libby Good | Becky Halbe | Mary Jennings | Kathryn Kellam | Joe Larsen | Dona Lee | Nicole McGrew | Joan McIntyre | Angela McNamara | Elaine Mills | Alyssa Ford Morel| Evin Morrison | Faatimah Muhammad | Benton Murphy | Molly Newling | Lynda Ramirez-Blust | Tricia Rodgers | Susan Wilhelm | Anne Wilson
During the 30-plus years she spent working as a professional architect, Beth Buffington enjoyed working with many talented landscape professionals and also gardening as a hobby. She has learned to appreciate how a connection with nature and the environment can bring satisfaction and pleasure to many people. As a Master Gardener, she hopes to share her love of gardening with others.
Kathie Clements is an Extension Master Gardener who focuses on sustainable landscaping and use of native plants to beautify our gardens and support the ecosystem. Her interest in deer grew from frequent visits of the local herd to her neighborhood. Kathie’s encounters with these hungry animals and the fawn daycare in her next-door neighbor’s yard, prompted her to research deer and learn what to do to discourage them from visiting her garden.
Nina DeRosa has been an Extension Master Gardener since 2016, and she is currently a coordinator for the organic vegetable demonstration garden. She maintains her own garden of native plants, vegetables, and herbs in an effort to replace lawns with a more sustainable landscape. She is hopeful that spreading information on good gardening practices will create a more diverse and healthier environment.
Libby Good’s love of gardening began early on her family farm. She joined the Master Gardeners in 2013 and began a five-year term leading public education initiatives and teaching a variety of classes. Libby particularly loves winter gardening and explains, “I had my first terrarium when I was four or five. Winter gardening is my outside terrarium, and I love harvesting a salad under glass, beneath a blanket of snow.” She is now working on the silver lining of oak decline to develop a food forest of fruit and nut trees, plus berries –all turning out to be wonderful bird feeders!
Becky Halbe retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) after a 30-plus year career mostly working in the National Wildlife Refuge System. A priority in retirement was the Master Gardener training, and she graduated with the class of 2015. She was already an active volunteer with Plot Against Hunger vegetable gardening program, and, as a Master Gardener, she continued in this work plus other public education classes, public events, the Plant NoVA Natives campaign, and became a Board Director with Arlington Friends of Urban Agriculture. Apart from being a Master Gardener, she is also an active Master Naturalist. She’s still practicing saying “no,” as she recently started part-time temporary work back with USFWS!
Local to the Washington, D.C. area, Mary Jennings is a graduate of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and the Moore College of Art and Design. She currently works as a professional artist and art instructor at the Arlington Artists Alliance, the National Sporting Library and Museum, and the Salamander Resort and Spa. Her private workshop clients include the Kennedy Center and several businesses. Mary earned her certification as an Extension Master Gardener in 2013, Master Naturalist in 2022, and Level 1 Sommelier in 2023.
Kathryn Kellam grew up in South Carolina and has loved having her fingers in the dirt since childhood. She moved to Virginia 30 years ago and, after a career in professional development and research, became a Master Gardener in 2017. Kathryn’s greatest pleasure in gardening is being able to eat—and drink–what she grows! She is active in public education, supports the Help Desk team, and co-leads the Del Ray plant clinic. She enjoys providing gardening support to her neighbors in Alexandria, and she is nurturing a tiny food forest in her small urban yard.
Joe Larsen recently completed his training in the Master Gardener program and is currently an intern. A scientist by training, he earned his BA in microbiology at the University of Kansas and his PhD in microbiology and immunology at the Uniformed Services University. He has over 10 years of vegetable gardening experience and has been using hydroponic systems for the last eight years. He has experience with deep water culture, ebb and flow, and aeroponic systems, and has set up indoor growing spaces to cultivate multiple vegetable species using hydroponics.
Dona Lee became a certified Master Gardener in 2017. She has taught principles of vegetable gardening in our urban agriculture series both in-person and virtually for many years. She loves vegetable gardening, especially growing different varieties, trying new techniques, and, of course, getting to eat what she has grown. She enjoys sharing her many experiences and lessons learned.
Nicole McGrew is an attorney and business owner in Alexandria, Virginia. A gardener since childhood, Nicole is constantly reminded of how there is always more to learn about horticulture. When she’s not working, you can find Nicole in the garden, in a book, or planning her next trip. She became an Extension Master Gardener in 2021.
Angela McNamara began her gardening journey as a child in her grandmother’s exquisite flower beds. She became a Master Gardener in 2018 and acts as a co-coordinator of our Small Space demonstration garden that showcases native plants and edibles appropriate for small gardens and containers. In addition, she teaches our pruning class to new master gardener trainees and to the public. In her community she co-chairs the grounds committee for her 93 acre condominium complex. She enjoys providing gardening help and best practices for a healthy environment.
Joan McIntyre has been a Master Gardener since 2015. She conducts public education programs on sustainable landscaping, mosquito and tick management (without harming pollinators), and best practices. She works with other Master Gardeners to spread information on sustainable landscaping through neighborhood social media platforms and various in-person events. She founded the Cherrydale Garden Club to bring neighbors together to share their expertise and love for gardening and participate in neighborhood efforts to promote trees and native plants. She also serves as a Commissioner on Arlington’s Climate Change, Energy, and Environment Commission and volunteers with EcoAction Arlington.
Elaine Mills trained as Master Gardener in 2012 and quickly developed a special interest in sustainable landscaping, creating the first set of fact sheets on “Tried & True Native Plants” that are a popular resource on the MGNV website. She has spent the past 12 years growing native plants and photographing them in local public and private gardens, and she enjoys selecting pictures from her photo library to illustrate her talks, articles, short videos, and educational social media posts. In the past, she has served as one of the coordinators of the Glencarlyn demonstration garden, and beginning in 2025, she will chair the MGNV Public Education Committee.
Alyssa Ford Morel grew up in a gardening family in California. She now lives in Arlington, Virginia, where she volunteers as an Extension Master Gardener and a Master Naturalist. She serves as one of the coordinators of the Glencarlyn Library Community Garden and as an Audubon at Home Ambassador.
Evin Morrison became a Master Gardener in 2021. She made Virginia her home in 2019 after stops in Oklahoma, California, and her home state of Texas. While her botanical interests vary, she has spent a lot of her time researching and caring for tropical houseplants, succulents, and cacti.
Faatimah Muhammad grew up in New York and moved to the area to work in education policy. She has been an avid gardener for as long as she can remember and currently maintains a plot in the organic Chinquapin Community Garden in the City of Alexandria. She is passionate about household plants, vegetables, herbs, and native plants. From having grape vines in New York to teaching her children how to garden and produce excellent vegetable crops in Georgia, and bartering hot peppers with her neighbor in Trinidad, she has had the opportunity to grow multiple types of plants throughout her life in various climates and conditions. Her love for her native Caribbean cuisine has always shaped what she chooses to grow, and her garden expresses that culture and feels like a little piece of home.
Benton Murphy, who trained as a Master Gardener in 2022, is an avid collector of houseplants, including cacti and orchids with over 200 plants in his home collection. His other gardening interests include vegetable gardening (especially tomatoes) and gardening for pollinators. In addition to playing an active role in public education, he serves as one of the coordinators of the Small Space Garden.
Molly Newling has been a Master Gardener since 2013 and brings 50 years of gardening experience to the organization. She is a member of the pruning team and works regularly at the Help Desk while maintaining her own townhouse garden and a community vegetable plot in addition to improving the grounds of her church.
After a successful career providing financial and accounting services to nonprofit organizations, Lynda Ramirez-Blust earned a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture and an MA in Urban and Regional Planning from Virginia Tech. Her passion is the creation of flourishing foodscapes to demonstrate how food-producing landscapes can be aesthetically pleasing, good for the soil, and support biodiversity. She became a certified Master Gardener to share the knowledge that she’s acquired and to continue her lifelong journey of learning.
Tricia Rodgers’ passion for gardening was developed when she used to help harvest vegetables for dinner on her father’s family farm in Pennsylvania. A Master Gardener since 1998, she has led a variety of public education classes over the years. Her particular interests are in teaching novice gardeners the joys of vegetable gardening, leading classes in gardening history, and, most recently, in sharing the benefits that gardening confers on physical, emotional, social, and cognitive health. She recently completed a certificate program in therapeutic horticulture and spearheaded the development of a therapeutic horticulture program for people with dementia at a local retirement community.
Susan Wilhelm grew up in Michigan, moving to the DC area after college for a job in public policy. She is a third generation vegetable gardener whose earliest gardening memory is of her parents amending the soil in a backyard garden bed specifically for growing raspberries. She and her husband often joke that they bought their house in Alexandria primarily because it had enough sun and space to grow tomatoes. Susan is an avid reader, loves to eat, and studies ikebana (Japanese flower arranging). As a Master Gardener, she is a member of the Social Media Committee primarily writing book reviews. Susan also teaches public education classes on vegetable gardening and herbs and has mentored public education intern projects.
Anne Wilson is an international nurse clinician whose more than 45 years of practice have included a focus on designing and leading health and well-being programs for communities. She has worked in more than 47 countries to advocate for holistic health care at the community, regional and global levels. She has led numerous retreats focusing on the positive links between Nature, health and well-being. A lifelong avid gardener and environmentalist, she has dedicated more recent time and energy to habitat restoration and advocacy for access to environmentally sound green spaces to improve physical and mental well-being, especially in congested urban settings. She received her Master of Science in Nursing degree at the Catholic University in Washington, DC and her Master of Arts in Theology at the Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC. She has been an active Master Gardener since 2011.