Andrea D’Silva, founder and co-owner

Andrea D’Silva founded Swallowtail Native Plants in 2022. She uses her background in education, botany, and restoration ecology to teach people how to grow native plants from seed. She is particularly fond of sedges, asters and goldenrods.

Rodney D’Silva, co-owner

Rodney D’Silva manages the business side of Swallowtail Native Plants. He wears many hats, including administration, order fulfillment, HR, operations and finances. He uses his background in project management as a network architect to keep Swallowtail running smoothly.

Alex Maclellan, Native Seed Field Technician

Alex is in his 3rd year of Environmental Science (Ecology) at the University of Waterloo.  In between planting all the plants he is also taking a baseline inventory of the insects at our main site and at our new site. We are hoping to see an increase in the number of insect species and abundance as our native plantings mature.

Andrew Clarke, Native Seed Field Technician

Andrew is in his 3rd year of Conservation Biology at Trent University. When he is not out planting he is helping with our seed germination trials. The germination trials help us to produce our plants more efficiently and provide accurate germination information.