Leslie Finical Halleck

Leslie Finical Halleck is a horticulturist by education and profession. She received her B.S. in Biology/Botany from University of North Texas and then her M.S. in Horticulture from Michigan State University.

She started her career in the gardening world in college at a little garden center called the Green Fiddler, Denton, Texas. Leslie also ran her own small gardening business. In 1998 she joined the Dallas Arboretum, first as Curator of Plants and then Director of Horticulture Research, a joint position with Texas A&M University. Leslie’s work at the Dallas Arboretum included creating their highly successful plant trials program as well as an All-America Selections Trial Garden, serving as an AAS Judge. She currently serves as a test gardener for Organic Gardening Magazine.

After making the decision to move on from the Arboretum in 2003, Leslie spent two years writing and doing garden design & sales full time. In 2005 she joined North Haven Gardens in Dallas, Texas as their General Manager. Over the last 13 years she’s written for scientific, trade and popular garden publications. Leslie continues to write for regional gardening publications and lectures regularly on a number of gardening topics. Leslie has a passion for plants and devotes much of her gardening time to growing vegetables.

Leslie is an Army Brat, grew up in Germany and has moved more times than she can count. She currently resides in Dallas, Tx...which for you gardeners is Zone 8.

GUEST AUTHORS: I also have a couple of new guest authors on the blog:

Julie: All around urban agrarian domestic goddess and chicken wrangler. Because she's a writer, she will most likely provide much wittier posts than I...

Nikki: Gen X gardener in training...willing to try any gardening experiment we give her and any recipe in the kitchen. She always has a positive attitude towards killing plants...LOL