Florida Native Plants
 
Branch of a young "Winged Elm" tree
Janice de Grineau, Landscape Consultant (Nursery Co-Owner)
Janice has spent most of her professional career as an owner of retail businesses and latterly as a retail consultant. Since moving to Florida from England 22 years ago, concern for the local environment has projected her energies into that field. Numerous study courses were undertaken at the University of Florida in Gainesville, in Winter Park, and the Horticultural Department of Sarasota County Technical Institute. She is experienced in working with professionals and volunteers in homeowner and condo associations in landscape planning and maintenance and also habitat restoration on sensitive lands. Janice is a Florida Garden Club National Landscape Design Critic and a former Master Gardener, as well as a former member of the Sarasota County Tree Board. As a landscape consultant with the nursery, she assists residents with landscape plans and plant selections. She is the Office Manager for the Nursery and is the editor of the nursery newsletter that has a circulation of over 1400 and is printed 3 times a year.
Laurel Schiller, B.Sc., M.A. (Nursery Co-Owner)
Florida Native Plants Owner Laurel Schiller

Laurel has a degree in wildlife biology from Oregon State University and a degree in systematics and ecology from Indiana State University. Laurel taught biology at Roosevelt University in Chicago. She also worked as a mammalogist at the New York Zoological Society (Bronx Zoo) and at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. She is a former National Landscape Design Critic (Florida Garden Club) and Florida Master Gardener. She is currently completing the Florida Master Naturalist program.


Since she moved to Venice, Florida, fourteen years ago, Laurel's interests have been channeled into preserving the natural environment. She is vice-president of the Florida Native Nursery Association and chair of the State Education Committee for the Association. She serves on the board of directors for the Friends of the Rails to Trails Park in Sarasota and is a member of the Sarasota Tree Advisory Council. She is immediate past president of the Friends of Oscar Scherer Park, Inc. Laurel is serving a second term as a Sarasota County Planning Commissioner.


Laurel designs native plantings for natural areas for homeowners as well as homeowner associations. She specializes in native plant restoration and mitigation work and enjoys creating wildlife habitat. She has worked on native plant designs for numerous school sites and for state, county, and city lands.


Laurel and her partner Janice de Grineau, are both on the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens' Speaker's Bureau. Laurel presents programs and seminars on Florida native plants and natural Florida landscaping to groups and societies throughout Southwest Florida. With her partner, Dan Walton, Laurel has written Natural Florida Landscaping published by Pineapple Press and available April 2007.

Dan Walton, B.Ch.E.., Ph.D. (Nursery Co-Owner)
Dan is a Chemical Engineering graduate of the University of Delaware and has a Ph.D. in plant physiology from the State University of New York at Syracuse. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas, Plant Research Institute. He initially worked for the du Pont CO. in Technical & Economic studies. After obtaining a PhD he moved into the academic profession at the State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where as professor in the departments of Chemistry & Biology, he taught and did research on seed germination and hormone biochemistry. He is a former master gardener,served on the Sarasota Park and Recreation Board and was an adjunct member of the Environmental Horticulture department at the University of Florida.