Bee Dawson is a Wellington author, columnist, public speaker and historian. She has published 20 books of New Zealand social history, including A History of Gardening in New Zealand, Lady Painters: the flower painters of early New Zealand and Ōtari. Two hundred years of Ōtari-Wilton’s Bush. A keen gardener, Bee is a member of the Australian Garden History Society and a past recipient of the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture’s Garden History Award.