About The Prairie Garden
Since 1937, The Prairie Garden has published an affordable, digest-sized book written and edited by an enthusiastic volunteer committee. Dedicated to the advancement of horticulture in the prairies, The Prairie Garden is proudly published in Winnipeg, Manitoba, CANADA. The Prairie Garden is western Canada's only gardening annual publication.
Each year, The Prairie Garden committee selects a theme and invites a Guest Editor, who is an expert on the theme, to join The Prairie Garden committee. Articles, and photos, submitted by skilled gardeners, horticulturists, academics, and committee members are edited to meet The Prairie Garden style and standards. The Prairie Garden Committee also includes associates who write articles, edit and provide photos and images for the book. Collectively, all of these contributors, are what make The Prairie Garden possible, as are our sponsors, and you, our loyal readership.
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Click here to learn more about our history.
The Prairie Garden Committee
Tim Evans
Chair
My profession has been for 31 years a Registered Massage Therapist specializing in deep tissue massage, postural and structural work and therapeutic treatments ‘by day’. I am a Manitoba Master Gardener ‘by night’ (and on the weekends) mostly tending to my home gardens which have been used frequently for weddings, renewal of vows, wedding photo opportunities, memorial services, fundraisers and other events during the summer months. I have been a dedicated gardener for over 30 years with a confession for having a weak spot for tall flowering perennials and a favourite idol, world famous Dutch gardener, Piet Oudolf.
As a result of having my more recent homes on umpteen garden tours, I became irrevocably addicted to them with no desire to find a cure which eventually led becoming the coordinator for Nature Manitoba’s Gardens of Distinction garden tours for the past 5 years, a fundraiser event which had their inception 24 years ago.
I am also a beekeeper of 4 hives right on my home property. My gardens comprise of umpteen perennials, clematises and fruit trees which led to the addition of bees as a natural progression beyond growing flowers. My gardening interests keep changing yearly from one variety of perennials to another. As well, one of my personal goals has been to try to maintain my gardens in bloom in some form or fashion from early spring to late fall in a prairie zone of 3/4. The progression is slowly happening. It just takes time and patience.
Evelyn Lundeen
Editor
I have been interested in gardening since about four years of age. I remember waking up very early one summer morning and wandering outside in my pyjamas and bare feet onto the wet, dew-covered grass to see my father occupied with all these wonderful tiny green things in little brown pots. My education carried me onto a totally different path as I ended up becoming a nurse - first working in the ICU and, when I grew tired of working every second weekend, being away from family on many holidays and switching back between day and night shifts, I became an instructor at Winnipeg’s Red River College. I retired after chasing nursing students around the hospital wards for 25 years. My love of gardening sustained me in a career that had many highs but also many lows. That love continues to this day and I still go out many a summer morning in my pyjamas and bare feet to see how all the “tiny green things” in my garden are doing.
Dorothy Dobbie
Guest Editor
Dorothy Dobbie is the founder and president of Pegasus Publications Inc., publisher of Canada’s Local Gardener magazine. She is a writer, photographer and broadcaster on gardening topics and is a member of the Garden Writer’s Association of America.
Dorothy hosted The Gardener radio show on CJOB for 15 years and has a garden blog as well as a garden show on Lifestyles 55 Digital Radio. She is a frequent speaker at gardening events.
She is the co-author with her daughter Shauna of the Book of 10 Neat Things and sole author of 10 Neat Things 2. She was editor of the The Prairie Garden for 2022.
Dorothy loves trees and is a past president of Tree Canada, immediate past president of the International Peace Garden and was a member of the organizing board for the Year of the Garden in Canada.
A former member of Parliament, Dorothy was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment among other posts. She is immediate past president of the Canadian Association of Former Parliamentarians. She was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2022.