Perfect Plant Pairings: An artistic eye – Feb. 9th

Speaker: Paul Gellatly – The Tattooed Gardener

A passionate life-long horticulturist, Paul was featured on Season 1 of the award-winning television documentary series ‘Visionary Gardeners’. Paul is currently the CEO of The Tattooed Gardener Inc. He is the former Director of Horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden, the former Curatorial Gardener at The Toronto Zoo, managing one of Canada’s largest tropical plant collections, and the former Vice-President of the Etobicoke Horticultural Society.

Many online garden lovers may know Paul through his strong online presence as The Tattooed Gardener, with social media posts reaching 30-35 million people per month. He is an avid collector of rare and unusual plants with a personal collection of over 800 tropical plants. As an experienced hybridizer of daylilies, with 130 registrations with the American Hemerocallis Society. Paul is the recipient of the 2022 Douglas Lycett award for the daylily now registered ‘Oscar Peterson’.

Although gardening has been a lifelong passion (He was a Director of the Waterloo Horticultural Society at 16 years old, and received the Rotary Environmental Award presented by David Suzuki), he entered horticulture as a profession just over a decade ago.

Paul started part-time at Plant World in their perennial department. He then accepted a position as gardener/grower for the City of Toronto, maintaining historical gardens in the west end of Toronto (Sunnyside Pavilion / James Gardens). He also spent time as an estate gardener for a Trillium award-winning garden in Carlisle, Ontario.

Paul has been a guest on numerous Podcasts and Radio shows, in Newspapers and Magazines. His former home garden is featured in Tara Nolan’s book: Gardening Your Front Yard: Projects and Ideas for Big and Small Spaces.