The Transatlantic Plantsman

As a garden writer, people often ask me how I find things to write about. Are they kidding? Just one look out of the window, even at the end of November, provides enough ideas to write about all day: the deer fence, the shining birch bark, the woodpecker, the last flowers of the season, making new raised beds, the foliage that still looks good after two nights of 20F/-6.5C.

But here, without the demands of an editor at a newspaper or a magazine, I can write about any plant that’s interesting, any book about plants, any way of using plants and that’s what I’ll be concentrating on – plants and books about plants.

I spend part of my time gardening in Northamptonshire in England (zone 8), about two hours north of London, and part of the time in Milford Pennsylvania (the much colder zone 5) about two hours north west of New York City. I’ll be writing from, and about, both countries – hence Transatlantic Plantsman.

Follow up: I'd intended to post here two or three times a week - but no sooner had I posted this introductory message - I mean just an hour or two later - than my computer had be sent off for repairs. So when I can get access to my wife's machine...

Comments

[kim (blackswamp_girl)]

I found you via GardenRant... and I'm very glad that I did. I look forward to reading more of your blog postings--even if learning about things like inaccessible quarterly publications from RHS make me quite jealous!

[Graham Rice]

Thanks Kim, although The Plantsman is not completely inaccessible. It's available by mail in the US at £45 per year (less if you're an RHS member) - a prohibitive price it's true at today's exchange rates - and a few articles are available free-to-read online including this month's piece on baptisias by Tony Avent. Start here:
http://www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/publications/pubs_journals_plantsman.asp

I'll be seeing them in a couple of weeks and will again raise the issue of Americans having to pay about $87 a year!