Dawn Stelts

As the Master Gardener and Master Watershed Steward Coordinator for Montgomery County, PA, I am able to combine the best of both worlds: teaching and horticulture/ecology.

I worked 6 years in Sales and Design for a wholesale native tree and shrub nursery in Central IN. This restoration nursery collects seed in the Central Hardwoods region and propagates over 100 genera of native woody plants using root pruning production methods.

In 2009 I was in the first co-hort of scientists training as secondary science teachers under Woodrow Wilson Fellowships.

In 2003 I started Native Habitat Developers LLC, my Landscape Design service that uses native plant communities to maximize ecosystem services while honoring design principles. After more than a decade of designing and installing native plant communities, I added rare plant propagation to my skillset using tissue culture propagation to grow our native Cypripedium orchids from seed.

I began my career as a bench biologist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia working on chromosome 22 for the Human Genome Project. I worked five years researching asthma in the pharmaceutical industry in New Jersey before relocating to the Midwest and focusing on restoration biology for 17 years. In 2017 I returned to Southeastern PA to restore a 200 year old farm.