Michael Lavelle has been a keen observer of nature since his early childhood in Lancashire. His first great interest was in the wild flowers that he saw around him, and his love of these eventually led him to train as a horticulturist in the Lake District, then at Askhm Bryan College, York. He worked as a professional landscaper before starting a career as a horticultural lecturer in the early 1990s. Michael's work in horticulture involves plants from all around the world and whenever possible he has taken the opportunity to travel and look at them within their natural setting, believing that understanding a plant's origin is the key to its cultivation. He is an avid amateur naturalist, as well as an author and lecturer. Michael has designed and constructed several educational exhibits at the Chelsea Flower Show, achieving prestigious gold medals in 1999, 2003 and 2005, and winning a silver medal for his specialist wildlife garden in 2007. He works as a senior lecturer in landscape management at Writtle College in Chelmsford. Consultant Martin Walters is a writer, editor and naturalist, based in Cambridge, UK. He studied Zoology at Oxford University, and worked for several years as Biological Sciences Editor at Cambridge University Press where he was responsible for developing the botany, ecology and natural history lists, before becoming a freelance editor and writer. He now works partly in connection with the People and Plants Initiative of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), organizing their publications. He is a keen field naturalist, with a special interest in botany, birds, habitats and conservation. Martin has published regularly, including field guides to birds and flowers, and nature reference books. He has also translated and adapted natural history books, including books on birds and botany, and is General Editor of the recent Travellers' Nature Guides to Britain, France, Greece and Spain (Oxford University Press), co-author of the Nature Guide to Britain in that series, and contributed much of the text on natural habitats to the popular reference book Earth (Dorling Kindersley). He has served on the Wicken Fen advisory panel and is a member of his local Wildlife Trust, Cambridge Bird Club, Cambridge Natural History Society, National Trust, RSPB and BTO, and is also a member of the editorial board of Nature in Cambridgeshire, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and an Associate of WWF.