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Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
School: Indiana University
Expertise: landscaping and garden
Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
- Co-instructor, City Gardener Program, Purdue-Marion County Extension, six-week program.
- Author/publisher of HoosierGardener.com, with monthly checklists, area garden-nature activities and resources The Hoosier Gardener national award-winning newsletter, published free monthly.
- Spent two decades as a perennials, trees and shrubs buyer for a large independent Indianapolis garden center
- “Ask the Expert” columnist and contributor to Indiana Gardening.
Experience
Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp is an award-winning garden writer, photographer, speaker, teacher and consultant. She loves plants and watching them grow; loves their fragrances, textures and seasonal changes; figuring out how to encourage them to thrive; seeing which insects or animals visit them—all the attributes that make them garden-worthy. She also runs a four-season container service, and so plants about eighty containers three or four times a year, depending on residential and commercial clients' needs, and trials about fifty plants a year. Jo Ellen is also knowledgeable about green/sustainable living and how to help people incorporate these practices in their daily lives. She's been writing and speaking about gardening, landscaping, travel and plants for thirty years.
Before freelancing, she was a longtime newspaper reporter at The Indianapolis Star, writing an award-winning weekly garden column; founding editor of Michigan Gardening, Iowa Gardener and Minnesota Gardener, and editor of Wisconsin Gardening magazines; founding editor of Indiana Living Green magazine, focused on sustainable living; editor of On the QT, the national award-winning digital newsletter published six times a year by GardenComm: Garden Communicators International; and a digital writer for lawn and landscape companies.
Education
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis
Indiana Advanced Master Gardener
Family Handyman Editorial Policies
For more than seven decades, Family Handyman has been providing its audience with ideas, inspiration and step-by-step directions on how to maintain and enhance indoor and outdoor living spaces. In addition to having our own staff of experts, we hire individuals whose skills have been honed through years of experience in the building, plumbing and electrical trades, and as passionate homeowners who have translated DIY (do it yourself) skills into careers as respected creators.
Articles
9 Spring Perennials You Should Divide
Want free spring perennials? Divide perennials in spring so you'll have more to transplant in your garden and share with family and friends.
13 Perennials You Didn’t Know You Could Divide
Dividing perennials is good for them! And you get new plants for your yard and garden, or to give to family, friends and neighbors.