Chris Lane has worked in professional horticulture all his life both as a nurseryman, currently production director for Coblands Nurseries Ltd., and also as a lecturer at Hadlow College, Kent, England, where he first became interested in witch hazels. He started collecting them seriously after the cold winter of 1979–1980. Chris is a long-serving member of The International Plant Propagators' Society, becoming international president in 1995. He serves on the Woody Plant Trials Committee for the Royal Horticultural Society and on the committee for The Horticultural Development Council representing the Hardy Nursery Stock Industry.