For nearly four decades, Bill Slack has been a licensed landscape architect, author and lecturer. A University of Georgia faculty member for 13 years, Bill was named the top Extension Landscape Architect in the United States by the American Society of Landscape Architects for his exceptional work in landscape education.

Formerly Southern Living magazine’s landscape and garden specialist, Bill hosted “Southern Living Gardening Moments” on HGTV during the 1990s.

As the magazine’s spokesperson, he appeared on dozens of local television and radio programs nationwide, as well as made guest appearances on the nationally syndicated Crook & Chase Show. Bill recently completed his 18th publication, Southern Living Garden Guide to Landscaping, and has contributed to countless newspaper and magazine articles on landscape design.

Backyard Life Q&A: Landscape Architect and Dream Yards Host, Bill Slack

A lifetime fisherman, Greg Grimes’ lake management career began in 1991 while pursuing his undergraduate biology degree. Greg then went on to join a lake management company, and this desire to acquire more knowledge led him to obtain a Masters in Fisheries from the University of Georgia in 1998. Prior to earning his Masters, Greg founded Aquatic Environmental Services, Inc (AES) in 1996. Time has flown by since then, as it doesn’t seem like he’s been working on ponds for over a quarter of a century, now!

Greg oversees AES’ day-to-day operations of the company, with his main focus being the Fishery Management Division. He travels the eastern U.S. helping clients in their quest of growing the trophy fish of their dreams. Although many days are spent in the office, Greg does find time to get out on the shock boat, as well as designing and laying client lakes. 

Greg’s written numerous pond management articles, conducted fishery seminars, and worked on literally thousands of ponds and lakes. He can tackle most fishery issues, but realizes lakes are dynamic, ever-changing environments that require innovative methodologies in order to meet tomorrow’s goals. 

In his spare time, Greg can usually be found enjoying the great outdoors with his family.

Backyard Life Q&A with Fisheries Biologist, Greg Grimes

Meet David Bancroft, Prime Cuts host, chef, and owner of Auburn, Alabama-based Acre and Bow & Arrow restaurants. Born in Alabama and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Bancroft’s passion for food began at an early age, namely through the influence of his grandparents’ cooking and farming practices. In addition, his family’s own approach to homestyle dining played into his love of food. And, lucky for everyone who’s ever eaten a Bancroft-prepared meal, he figured out how to parlay this into a passion for farm-to-table cooking.

Southern Inspiration

Bancroft first drew knowledge and inspiration from his grandfather who farmed cattle, catfish, cotton and peanuts in South Alabama. While Bancroft spent time hunting and fishing on on his grandfather’s Alabama farm, he also learned how to smoke brisket and barbecue in South Texas. All of this laddered up to a deep appreciation for procuring and caring for meat.

After finishing high school, Bancroft attended Auburn University. While there, he served as kitchen steward for his fraternity before becoming head chef at Auburn’s Amsterdam Café his senior year. Under Bancroft’s lead, Amsterdam Café established farm-to-table dining in East Alabama, as well as recognition as one of the state’s Top-10 restaurants. And, it was here that Bancroft honed his culinary craft and sustainable cooking approach. It’s also where he began developing a name for himself.

Feeling confident in his experiences to this point, Bancroft then began looking for a way to utilize his self-taught skills as a farmer, forager and chef. In August 2013, he opened Acre restaurant with his wife, Christin.

Farm-to-Table

Situated on one acre of land, Acre reinterprets the rich heritage of Alabama cuisine. The restaurant’s seasonally influenced menu focuses on celebrating sustainable ingredients. It highlights an abundance of herbs, fruits and vegetables, along with poultry, meat and seafood. The land that Acre sits on is an edible landscape. It includes three on-site gardens and fruit orchards designed to provide fresh, seasonal harvest to create delicious offerings. Bancroft supplements this with ingredients received from friends and family in the local community.

Bancroft was a  2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef—South” award semifinalist. In addition, he won Food Network’s 2017 Iron Chef Showdown competition. In November 2018, he opened his second restaurant, Bow & Arrow, in Auburn. Bow & Arrow is his interpretation of a South Texas smokehouse with the communal dining approach of an Alabama potluck. The menu offers up an assortment of smoked meats cooked over a custom-built, live-fire Kudu grill. These menu items can be paired with a selection of southern sides like tater-tot casserole, collard greens and cream corn, to name a few.

When Bancroft isn’t focusing on his culinary ventures, he enjoys spending time with his wife and two children. He can also be found hunting and fishing on his family’s lower Alabama farm.

Backyard Life Q&A with Renowned Chef, David Bancroft

Born in Chicago and raised in Santa Fe, Kevin Nashan spent as much of his childhood in a restaurant as he did in the classroom. For 27 years, his family owned La Tertulia, a beloved Northern New Mexican restaurant started by his Hispanic grandfather in 1972. Throughout his youth, Nashan helped out doing everything from washing dishes to working front of house.  After graduating from St. Louis University, he enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. This led to an internship at Commander’s Palace under Chef Jamie Shannon, introducing him to the fast-paced world of restaurant kitchens, often doing 700 covers or more.

European Influence

After culinary school, Nashan immersed himself in French cuisine under the guidance of celebrated Chef Roland Liccioni at La Francais in Chicago, at the time considered one of the best restaurants in the country. In 1998, Nashan moved far from home for an opportunity to stage at El Raco de Can Fabes in northwestern Spain, but due to a miscommunication, found himself there in the wrong month! Always resourceful, he bought a Michelin Guide and set out for San Sebastian, a laid-back surf town with one of the highest concentrations of Michelin stars in the world. He knocked on doors and landed at the famed three-starred restaurant Martin Berasategui, which would ultimately make a lasting impression on Nashan and broaden his culinary path.

Sidney Street Cafe

After nearly a year in Europe, Nashan longed to return to the states and assumed a position at Daniel in New York City. Starting in garde manger, he worked his way through the kitchen, under the watchful eye of Chef Daniel Boulud. In 2002, Nashan returned to his adopted hometown of St. Louis with the intentions of opening a restaurant. He learned the owners of local standby Sidney Street Cafe were looking to pass the torch after 16 years in business. Nashan loved the beautiful building and decided, along with his wife, Mina, to buy the restaurant in 2003. In 2013, Sidney Street Cafe celebrated its 10^th year anniversary, and was named Restaurant of the Year for 2013 by St. Louis magazine.

Nashan seamlessly incorporates his wide variety of culinary experiences and influences into seasonal, locally sourced creations. His French training shines through his food in dishes like a play on bouillabaisse with eel and uni or foie gras with olives and citrus, while his time in Spain shows its lasting impact in soulful sofrito-based dishes and the innumerable cured products in the pantry. The New Mexican cuisine of his childhood is also never far from his mind—posole and aji paired with chiles rellenos are favorites to this day—and his love for Southern cuisine is reflected in the form of ingredients like ham hocks, sorghum and speckled grits. Nashan believes that sourcing locally should be expected, not celebrated, and it doesn’t get much closer to home than the micro greens he grows in the basement or the spring garden occupying 100 yards of the Sidney Street Cafe parking lot. 

Peacemaker Lobster & Crab

In August 2014, Nashan opened his second restaurant in St. Louis, Peacemaker Lobster & Crab. Inspired by Nashan’s time spent cooking and living in New Orleans and his travels along Maine’s rocky coast, Peacemaker highlights the Acadian tie between Northeastern and Louisiana cuisines. The menu features creative interpretations of coastal favorites like lobster rolls, po’boy sandwiches, steamed blue crab, seafood boils, chowders, gumbos and seasonal pies.

Dedicated to serving the St. Louis community, Nashan dedicates his time to culinary efforts outside the restaurants, including serving as consulting chef for Gambrill Gardens retirement community since 2015, as well as partnering with 4 Hands Brewing to offer Peacemaker favorites at the brewery since 2017.

Expanding to other Midwestern landlocked markets was always on Nashan’s mind, so when a regular customer urged him to consider opening in Tulsa, it took just one trip to the Sooner State for Nashan to find a second home for Peacemaker. He opened a Peacemaker Tulsa in a historic downtown space at the heart of Tulsa’s Blue Dome District in September 2018. 

Life & Accolades

Nashan won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Midwest in 2017, after being a finalist in the category in 2014 and 2016 and a five-time semifinalist. He has cooked for President Barack Obama, and he won the 2013 Cochon 555 Barbecue competition in St. Louis. In 2014, he competed in Esquire Network’s show “Knife Fight.”

When he’s not in the kitchen, he can be found training for triathlons and ironman competitions (he’s completed six!), playing sports, hunting and being outdoors. He loves enjoying all St. Louis and Tulsa have to offer with his wife, Mina, and their two sons, Max and Miles. 

We would like to extend our deepest condolences to Jane Waldrop, the host of Dream Yards and an incredible landscape designer that we at Exmark and Backyard Life will deeply miss.

Jane Waldrop’s played a lifetime of roles in her personal life: Daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother—and cancer survivor. In her professional life, she’s been a landscape designer in Augusta, GA for 38 years. As host of the Dream Yards series, she shows how people have achieved the perfect backyard for their style of living.

Jane’s love of plants began when, at age 7, she planted maple seeds in her dog’s water bowl that eventually grew into shade trees in her family’s backyard. A few years later, she started a tomato patch that evolved into a diverse vegetable garden.

Years later while in college, Jane’s love for horticulture was reignited during a plant classification course, ultimately culminating in a B.S. in Ornamental Horticulture and post-graduate studies in Landscape Design.

Over the course of her career as a landscape designer, Jane’s been able to help 1,000s of clients enhance the beauty of their homes, and create “vacation spots” in their own backyards. She’s designed specialty outdoor spaces such as outdoor living rooms and kitchens, perennial borders, waterfalls and ponds, woodland gardens, outdoor classrooms and native collections. And, to keep her hands in the soil, Jane’s developed a personal garden that continues to evolve, season after season.

Working with landscape and building contractors, real estate developers, and homeowners alike, Jane’s constantly teaching proper planting and pruning techniques, and always approaches each new project with more than just a plan. To her, landscape design includes the hard facts about the plants and design elements, as well as interpreting the style and feeling her clients want to achieve with their outdoor spaces.    

Backyard Life Q&A with Landscape Design Expert, Jane Waldrop

Rob McDaniel is the former executive chef of SpringHouse, a local-food-focused restaurant situated a stone’s throw from Lake Martin in Alexander City, Alabama.

McDaniel’s love affair with traditional Southern cuisine was instilled in him by his two Haleyville, Alabama grandmothers, and is a passion he still carries to this day. While at Auburn University, McDaniel decided to make a career out of that passion and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in hotel and restaurant management. After graduating, he headed north to Montpelier, Vermont to study at the New England Culinary Institute. During his time there, McDaniel honed his knowledge of, and appreciation for, sustainable cooking. In doing so, he became an avid advocate for supporting local farmers and preserving regional sources.

McDaniel continued to hone his skills by training under prestigious chefs like Johnny Earles at Criolla’s in Grayton Beach, Florida; Chris Hastings at Hot & Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, Alabama; and Drew Robinson at Jim ‘N Nick’s BBQ in Birmingham, Alabama. In these kitchens, McDaniel’s passion for Southern foods, foraging, and sustainability evolved into the culinary style he’s known for today. His respect for the land and dedication to its inspiration is showcased through his affinity for creating flavorful recipes crafted from local ingredients.

In 2009, McDaniel was named executive chef and general manager at the soon-to- debut SpringHouse. For more than a decade, he worked tirelessly to ensure SpringHouse’s seasonally based menu stayed true to the region’s local flavors and cuisine. In addition to his work at SpringHouse, McDaniel assumed the role of general manager for the newly re-acquired Kowaliga Restaurant (owned by the same management group as SpringHouse) in 2012.

The numerous awards and accolades McDaniel has received for his work come as no surprise. For the last five years, the James Beard Foundation has named him a Best Chef South semi-finalist. In 2014, SpringHouse was included in Southern Living’s 100 Best Restaurants in the South. McDaniel was honored as Auburn University’s 2012 Outstanding Hotel and Restaurant Management Program Alumnus. And, the Alexander City Chamber of Commerce honored him as the 2017 Chamber Business Person of the Year.

When McDaniel isn’t in the kitchen, he and his wife, Emily, are consumed by their young twin daughters, Rosemary and Amelia.