Kevin Gustina

I have a life-long interest in plants and botany. As an avid gardener, I’m the go-to person for family and friends whenever they need help with their plants. While not a professional horticulturalist, I do enjoy volunteering with my neighborhood association, helping with beautification days and taking care of street corner planters.

Our home landscaping is another source of my gardening experience and passion. In 2007, we won the area’s “Best Hardscape” award. It was for a rock garden I built several years ago, after personally hauling each and every rock from a stream on my step-dad’s property. While we have a small, city yard, it barely looks anything like it did when we moved in.

I am quite a fanatic when it comes to horticulture and botany. I have a few rare, difficult to care for houseplants which I tend to along with the wide variety of annuals and perennials throughout our property. Both my wife and I practice organic gardening and also compost in bins that I built.

Recently, I have become interested in ethnobotany and the chemistry behind it. These years of personal study, combined with professional concentration in chemistry, give me a good understanding of this area. While most of my knowledge gained on growing ethnobotanicals starts as research and interviews with other growers, it has all been verified with my own personal experience.

If I had to name a particular area of expertise, it's in propagating plants of any kind. Some people call it "guerilla ecology." I like to think of it as giving plants their freedom. After all, I've never met a plant I couldn't clone.