Hortus Oasis - Creative landscape design, photography and educational services.

Kristin Pategas, and her husband Stephen, are co-owners of Hortus Oasis in Winter Park, FL. Together they provide services in garden design and consultation, garden writing and photography as well as horticultural education.

Kristin is a horticulturist, a Florida Certified Landscape Designer (www.floridagardening.org), a member of the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (www.apld.org) and the Garden Writers Association (www.gwaa.org). In 2000 she completed 18 years of service with the Walt Disney World Resort. Her extensive horticultural career included: Program Manager for Gardening at the Disney Institute (see Kristin with nationally known gardening experts Felder Rushing - left and Roger Swain - right), Program Manager for the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, Manager of the WDW Nursery and Research Plant Pathologist at The Land at Epcot. Kristin's areas of expertise include residential and specialty garden design, topiaries, container gardening, hanging baskets, water gardens, wildlife gardens, herbs, interiorscaping and environmentally wise gardening.

Stephen and Kristin received three awards for their design of the Teaching Garden at the Disney Institute: FNGA 1997 Roy Rood Award of Landscape Excellence, FNGA 1997 Best in Category for Special Project, New Installation and the FCASLA 1998 Award of Merit. In 1998 and 1999 HGTV filmed two seasons of the daily gardening show WayToGrow (www.hgtv.com) at the Teaching Garden at the Disney Institute, where Kristin was a frequent specialty gardening guest. Kristin has also appeared on Next Door With Katie Brown and Gardening By The Yard with Paul James (www.hgtv.com).

Kristin joined Stephen to share their passion for plants in the monthly column Pategai On Plants. This column has appeared in Ornamental Outlook Magazine since 1992 as ‘Pategas On Plants', and continues to explore new and underutilized plants for the southeast.