Carl Elliott

Conservation Nursery Manager
The Evergreen State College

Carl brings more than two decades of professional experience to the Sustainability in Prisons Project. Including routine appearances on KUOW’s Weekday as its “Radio Gardener,” Carl has served in wide-ranging roles to advance sustainable agriculture and horticulture. He has helped The Nature Conservancy with ecological restoration activities at Shotwell’s Landing Nursery and Glacial Heritage Preserve and has taught many classes on organic gardening for Seattle Tilth. He was also a founding board member of Seattle Youth Garden Works, which trains homeless children and other at-risk youth in skills for employment and healthy living. Today, Carl applies his long-time passion for plants to helping corrections centers establish or improve gardens and horticultural programs inside prison fences. He is inspired by the eagerness to learn and the vigor incarcerated technicians bring to their work. With a B.S. from Evergreen, Carl aimed his graduate studies at the research and restoration of threatened plant life in the glacial outwash prairies of South Puget Sound. He began as the Conservation and Restoration Coordinator in 2011 and has expanded the conservation nursery program from one to four prisons in Washington State prisons.