David A. Francko

Hardy palm expert David Francko has recently been a featured guest on Martha Stewart Living TV, as well as NPR’s Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Francko is chair of the Department of Botany at Miami University in Ohio and his academic specialty is aquatic plants. He is co-investigator on the unversity’s Hardy Palms Project, and for many years he has experimented with warm-climate plants in his own gardens. Francko’s findings have been published in scientific journals and presented at national and international conferences. As part of a network of adventurous gardeners living in cooler regions of the world, Francko refuses to accept the common wisdom that “Palms won’t grow here.”