A Gardener’s Guide to Botany, based on Scott’s latest book by the same name, is an exciting dive into the Plant Kingdom. Your beautiful, tranquil garden is a battlefield in which plants wage war against predators and struggle to out-compete one another for light, water, and nutrients. Using familiar examples, Scott looks at how plants fulfill the five functions necessary for life: growth, feeding, defense, reproduction, and dispersal. This is a fascinating look at how plants grow—not how to grow plants. After hearing Scott speak, you’ll see plants in a new light and with new respect!

Trained in horticulture and botany, Scott Zona has explored plants in Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, Madagascar, Malaysia, New Guinea, the islands of the Pacific, and the continental United States. Scott has published over 175 scientific and popular articles and three books. His latest, A Gardener’s Guide to Botany, won an American Horticultural Society Book Award in 2022. Today Scott is co-editor of the International Palm Society’s quarterly journal, PALMS, and a Research Collaborator with the Herbarium of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.