Garden historian and writer, Lesley Parness, has worked in public gardens in America and abroad for the past five decades.  She is a popular speaker throughout the mid-Atlantic region, offering illustrated lectures and hands-on workshops to garden clubs, historic societies, Master Gardeners, libraries, and institutions with rare books collections of horticultural merit. 

Before she retired, Lesley served as Superintendent of Horticultural Education at the Morris County Park Commission, where she oversaw education, programming and interpretation at The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, Willowwood Arboretum, and the Bamboo Brook Outdoor Education Center for fifteen years.    

Currently, Lesley is a feature columnist for Gardener News Magazine, and contributor to many print and online gardening publications, as well as a Member Emeritus and past President of Garden State Gardens, a non-profit consortium of New Jersey’s public gardens.