Jan Miller-Klein

Jan Miller-Klein was born in 1953 to an Austrian father and English mother and began her interest in natural history growing up in the English countryside and collecting wildflowers for school competitions. Geography at school then gave her an abiding interest in geology and when going on field trips for a Geology degree at Manchester University she became also fascinated with wild plants associated with the rocks.

She worked as Liaison and Training Officer for the University of Manchester Regional Computer Centre and has travelled and lived in India, Canada, the Netherlands, Middle East, USA, Australia and the Far East . Jan has been married to scientist Dr. Richard Miller for over 30 years and they have two adult sons.

They moved to north Wales over twenty five years ago and began conservation work on eight acres of unimproved meadow. This expanded into an interest in the wild insects and other creatures that inhabited the area.

Jan then trained in writing and garden design. She has been a volunteer for Butterfly Conservation since 1999. This has involved organizing volunteers to carry out habitat management on Eyarth Rocks Reserve for rare butterflies in north Wales and she wrote and published a guide to the Reserve, gives lectures, courses and guided walks and constructs wildlife gardens for schools and communities. She also set up the websites; www.northwalesbutterflies.org.uk and www.7wells.co.uk , the latter to raise funds for the reserve and other work for conservation. She is currently a Trustee of the Wildlife Gardening Forum and chair of her local branch of the Wildlife Trusts. (Clwydian Branch - see Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/groups/nwwtmold/ )

Jan has published many articles in national and local magazines and newspapapers. In 2005 she published 'A Country Diary for North Wales', being a collection of some of these columns and articles. Her garden designs in a public parks in Colwyn Bay have won Britain in Bloom amongst several other awards. She holds the NCCPG National Collection of Eupatorium.