Guy Sternberg

Guy Sternberg (born 1947) is the owner and operator of Starhill Forest Arboretum in Petersburg, Illinois.

He is an arborist and author of Native Trees for North American Landscapes (2004) ISBN 0-88192-607-8 and (1996) ISBN 1-881527-66-2.

He is an expert of oaks and is a founding member of the International Oak Society, tree consultant, and lecturer.

Purdue University, Bachelor of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, 1970Pi Alpha Xi Honor Society

Guy Sternberg served on staff of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for 32 years, receiving the Honor Award for outstanding service, and was granted an honorary adjunct research appointment to the Illinois State Museum Botany Department and holds an adjunct faculty position with Illinois College. Guy is a charter life member and past chapter president of the Illinois Native Plant Society. He holds life memberships in the International Society of Arboriculture (from which he received a Special Recognition Award for his work with historic trees), the International Dendrology Society, and American Forests. Guy also is a founding life member, past president, and journal editor for the International Oak Society and received their Lifetime Service Award in 2003.

Sternberg has cultivated and studied trees since 1952 and now holds one of the most extensive oak genus (Quercus) living reference collections in North America at Starhill Forest Arboretum, where he and his wife Edie also grow more than 500 taxa of other woody plants. Starhill Forest is described in the American Association of Museums Directory, the American Horticultural Society's North American Horticulture Reference Guide, and Jacobs' Gardens of North America and Hawaii, and was featured in the 1994 educational film The Greenday Kids Learn About Trees. He has nominated more state tree champions than anyone else in Illinois (plus a few national champions) and works with the National Famous and Historic Tree Program of American Forests to promote awareness and appreciation of special and historic trees. He has consulted on tree management for the Illinois Office of the Attorney General, the Illinois Department of Agriculture, the Illinois Department of Military Affairs, the Illinois Capital Development Board, the Illinois Supreme Court, and the National Park Service. He has traveled widely studying trees and their habitats, and participated in educational exchanges with the national dendrology societies of Germany and Belgium, the TEMA Foundation of Turkey, the Kunming Institute of Botany in China, and arboreta throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

He lectures occasionally for the Chicago Botanic Garden, Iowa State University, and other institutions. Guy works on preservation of historic trees in his home county and does public service work for the Illinois Capital City of Springfield as the tree consultant and propagator for a special tree nursery serving Oak Ridge Cemetery, the setting of President Abraham Lincoln's Tomb. This project has been registered as a National Living Memorial Site by the US Forest Service.

Sternberg has provided papers and photographs for publications including American Nurseryman, Arborist News, Tree Care Industry, American Homestyle and Gardening, Wildflower, Midwest Living, Garden Gate, American Horticulturist, Landscape Architecture, Oak News and Notes, Weedpatch Gazette, American Gardener, Fine Gardening, Country Woman, Old House Journal, Organic Gardening, Landscape Architecture, and Chicagoland Gardening. He has published scientific papers in International Oaks (the journal of the International Oak Society), the International Plant Propagators Society Proceedings, the New York State Museum Bulletin, and the French Bulletin de l' Association des Parcs Botaniques, and served as English version editor for the Chinese Seed Plants of the Big Bend Gorge of Yalu Tsangpo in Southeast Tibet by Hang and Zhou. He also performs technical reviews for the National Arbor Day Foundation‛s Library of Trees series, and supplied botanical photographs for the US Forest Service Field Guide to Native Oak Species of Eastern North America and for several educational posters and web pages by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

Sternberg is the principal author (with Jim Wilson of The Victory Garden Public Television series) and photographer for Landscaping with Native Trees, a reference book for natural landscape management. He prepared a comprehensive, 550-page sequel to that volume titled Native Trees for North American Landscapes, released in January 2004, which has won national awards from the National Arbor Day Foundation and the Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries. Guy was a contributor to the World List of Threatened Trees project of the World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, England (funded by the Government of the Netherlands) and served as a taxonomic reviewer for Quercus in Flora of North America. He is a contributing author and volume editor for the World Compendium of Oaks in Düsseldorf (published in German by the Langeneicker Eichen Archiv). Guy also has been a contributor for several volumes in Houghton-Mifflin's Taylor's Guide garden encyclopedia series, including the monumental Taylor's Master Guide to Gardening, and for Taunton Press, Ortho, Timber Press, Reader's Digest, Houghton-Mifflin, Meredith, Better Homes & Gardens, and Brooklyn Botanic Garden horticulture books.