Diana is a Georgia native that grew up in the small town of Jefferson before moving to the Atlanta suburb of Historic Lakewood Heights, where she now spends her free time gardening or writing about it.  A dedicated organic gardener, she grows flowers, vegetables, and herbs in her half acre yard.  Diana has been gardening for most of her life and is quick to admit her green thumb was passed down from her grandparents.  You’ll often detect a glimmer of nostalgia in her voice when telling stories of her childhood gardening experiences while spending summers with her grandparents.

Another of Diana’s passions developed four years ago after reading about the plight of the Monarch butterfly.  Determined to increase their numbers, she has created a butterfly raising enclosure by placing Monarch caterpillars from her yard on host plants on her screened-in porch.  To date, Diana has successfully raised and released over 40 Monarch butterflies and plans to increase her numbers each spring and fall.

While not yet internationally known, Diana has already created quite a name for herself both locally and online.  She’s referred to by names such as Garden Guru, Flower Lady, Butterfly Queen, and her favorites, Madame Butterfly and Little Caterpillar.  In Historic Lakewood Heights she helped to spearhead many gardening programs including South Bend Park’s Children’s Community Garden and South Bend Park’s “street scape” on Lakewood Avenue.  She’s also helped create landscape designs and layouts for most of the gardening projects in the neighborhood.  Her experience with plants has and continues to encourage many people in the online community to reach out to her for help in identifying plants, solving problems with pests and diseases, as well as inquiries about her enormous seed collection.

After starting her personal gardening blog almost two years ago and with much encouragement from friends and family, Diana has begun working on additional writing endeavors.  She still writes her own blog but will soon start writing gardening blogs for the local online publication East Atlanta Patch.  Diana is also writing a gardening book that she hopes will be on bookshelves sometime before she dies…….  Gardening is Diana’s peace of mind: her solace from the stresses of the world. She never feels happier than she does when she has dirt under her fingernails.