Garden Experts

Meet our team of garden experts who will personally be answering your gardening questions.

Doug Jimerson has been gardening since he was 4 years old, helping his grandparents with their tiny New Jersey garden filled with azaleas, roses, hollies, and bearded iris. Right after college, Doug joined the gardening staff of Better Homes and Gardens®. For 20 years, he wrote and edited garden books, features, and special interest magazines. In 1996, Doug joined Garden.com, a leading Internet company, where he oversaw online and print magazines. In 2001, Doug returned to Better Homes and Gardens where he's the Editor-in-Chief of anything related to gardening under the BHG brand. Doug lives in rural Iowa with his wife, Karen, where they maintain the original BHG test gardens in their backyard.

Dr. Denny Schrock joined Meredith Corp. in 2002 and has since edited more than 20 gardening books. He currently serves as the garden books editor. For 18 years, Denny was extension horticulture specialist and coordinator of Master Gardener programs in several states. His interest in horticulture began at age 5 when his grandmother served as his mentor for his first vegetable garden. He describes himself as a plant nerd with a collection of more than 100 indoor plants and a low-maintenance landscape that features more than 1,500 perennials, trees, and shrubs.

Jane Austin McKeon is senior associate editor of Better Homes and Gardens® magazine. Jane grew up in Iowa as the nature-loving daughter of two gardeners who mentored her to love and preserve native flowers and fauna. She got her start in the magazine business as an editorial intern for Better Homes and Gardens ® magazine while studying journalism at Iowa State University. That summer job grew into a lifelong passion of promoting gardening and the natural world. She believes that gardeners can make this world a better place, one backyard at a time. Jane lives and gardens in Des Moines with her husband, four children, a rambunctious dog, and three curious cats.

Eric Liskey is deputy editor of gardens and outdoor living for Better Homes and Gardens® magazine. Eric was a nature lover before he got into gardening -- and and still is. Once he got to college, Eric decided a horticulture degree would be more practical than a botany degree. And he was right -- he eventually earned a botany degree in addition to one in horticulture. And hasn't worked as a botanist since! He's worked in various green industries -- commercial gardening and lawn care, retail nurseries, public parks -- but eventually landed in garden magazine publishing, which he's done for 15 years. He learned gardening in his native California, adapting to Midwestern life with only minor "horti-culture" shock.

James A. Baggett has been a garden editor and writer for more than 15 years. James now edits Country Gardens® magazine after serving as editor of Perennials^TM and the founding editor of Nature's Garden^TM magazines, both Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications. James also is the former executive editor of Country Living Gardener and Rebecca's Garden magazines. He is the author of Flower Arranging, a Best of Martha Stewart Living Book (Oxmoor House) and the former garden editor of American Homestyle & Gardening. James recently relocated with his good dog Scout from New York City -- where he tended a 10x20-foot garden behind an 1850 brownstone -- to Des Moines, where the lawn in front of his Arts & Crafts bungalow is slowly being replaced with flowerbeds.

Justin W. Hancock is the garden editor for BHG.com. He is a plant lover to the core. His home garden, though only quarter acre, is packed with more than 2,000 varieties of plants. Some of his favorites are bleeding hearts, perennial geraniums, passionflowers, and tropical hibiscus. He even plans his vacations so he can hit garden destinations. Justin is a certified professional horticulturist. He has worked as a Better Homes and Gardens garden editor since 2003.

David Speer has grown organic vegetables and herbs in places as varied as a 5-acre farm in the hills of Arkansas and a small suburban backyard in Iowa. His father introduced him to the joy of eating a warm tomato fresh from the garden, and he's never recovered. Along the way, David learned to love roses, apple trees, and annual flowers. He's made a pact with the wild birds in his backyard that he will keep them in food and water year-round if they help him survive the Iowa winters.