Graduating from Western New England College with a Bachelor of Science degree and a major in biology, Ed continued to pursue his interest in biology with graduate courses at Oxford University. He also completed the National Park Service Ranger program at the University of Massachusetts, later working as a Ranger for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
As Head of Historic Gardens at Hancock Shaker Village, a living history museum in Western Massachusetts, Ed planned, planted and maintained gardens consistent with Shaker tradition, widely making use of organic gardening techniques while nurturing a variety of heirloom flower, herb and vegetable strains. Ed also began his foray into the cultivation of ideas at Hancock Shaker Village, interpreting the Shaker gardens, their history, and his thoughtful approach to their careful maintenance. His vast knowledge and his gift for relating to plants and people made him a popular speaker for museum lectures. He educated the public with humor and flair on a wide array of gardening topics ranging from simple organic gardening to the successful propagation of tropical plants in New England.
Followers of lifestyle program Mass Appeal on NBC affiliate Channel 22 will know Ed as the resident plant and garden expert on the show. His public speaking engagements have included symposiums and lectures at garden centers, garden clubs and museums, most notably at Whisteriahurst in Holyoke. At the invitation of PBS Channel 57, Ed will be treating attendees of the 2015 Asparagus Festival in Hadley with his presentation there.
Ed has landscaped and designed numerous gardens, both professionally and as part of his abiding personal interest in gardening. He has built and maintained a variety of greenhouses, including a solar pit greenhouse. His own home, a timber frame cabin in Chester, Massachusetts, built with the help of friends, is situated on 34 park-like acres and surrounded by gardens. Versed in heirloom gardening, period gardens, organic gardening, water gardens, koi keeping, greenhouse gardening, and, his great passion, tropical plants, Ed still finds time to assist home gardeners and to continually improve the extraordinary place he calls home.