As a kid, I can remember feeling dubious whenever my parents tried to convince me that something educational could also be fun. I felt like they were trying to dupe me into doing the “smart” thing rather than hanging out with my friends or playing with my toys.

As an adult, I’ve learned that fun and educational don’t have to be mutually exclusive and as senior publicist I get to combine both by organizing bookstore events for my authors.  I attended one such event last week at Powell’s Books with David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth (or, “The Plant Doctors”, as we call them around the office), authors of What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?).

We were a little concerned that turnout would be hampered by the pelting rain and wind, but Portland gardeners rarely let the rain deter them. If they did, Portland wouldn’t be such a thriving gardening community. The crowd was lively, asking lots of questions:

“Why are my camellia buds brown?”—Probably because of last week’s cold snap.

“How do you get rid of mealy bugs?”—Sanitize the plant by removing affected leaves then spray with insecticidal soap several times a week until the pests are gone.

The audience had fun passing silk roses around with various maladies painted on them and following the flow charts in the book to “diagnose” them, and we learned a bunch of new tricks to prevent plants from going the way of the compost pile.

David and Kathryn are currently on tour along the West Coast.  Keep up with their schedule here if you are interested in a little educational fun!

We are giving away three copies of Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers! See the end of this post for details.

I’m not what one would call a visual person. When it comes to taking pictures something always feels a bit off. I know what I want the picture to look like, but getting the camera to cooperate doesn’t always work.

When Timber published Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers in 2008, I knew that I wanted to teach myself to be a better photographer. I bought myself a nice Digital SLR camera, and have been playing around with it with mixed results. I’m still learning the ins and outs of shutter speed and aperture, and am realizing that I should probably experiment with lenses beyond the ones that came with the camera when I bought it.

I couldn’t have been more excited when the first of six podcasts that Alan Detrick did with Timber covered just that—lenses! He gave me some good suggestions on what to look out for in terms of price, lens quality, and how to get the family to help pay for them.

If you are looking for some pointers to help you take the most beautiful shots possible, listen to the Timber Press Podcast for the next six weeks. Alan covers everything a beginner like myself could hope to learn: equipment, lighting, how to handle windy photo shoots, how to find the best composition, and even how to photograph insects.

As spring beings to creep into the Northern hemisphere, any number of you will want to go out and take pictures of all the beauty. To support your efforts, Timber Press is hosting a blog/Twitter giveaway during the course of Alan’s podcasts. All you have to do is show us your favorite macro photograph.  You can email us (web@timberpress.com), or you can leave a link to one of your photos in the comments to this blog or on our Twitter feed.  (If you don’t already follow us on Twitter, please do!) We’ll post the photos we receive on our Flickr page as inspiration (with permission from the photographer.)

We are giving away three copies of Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers . Winners will be chosen from the comments, photos, and tweets on March 8th.

Take out your camera, send us your own shots, and have fun!

Portland in January can be pretty drab and dreary. The grey of the bare branches matches the grey of the ever present clouds, which match the grey of the pavement (often muddied and puddled by the grey rain). Even the numerous conifers take on a charcoal cast. With spring (and color!) several months out, I was ecstatic to receive an advance copy of Tom Fischer’s The Gardener’s Color Palette.

Every chapter represents a specific color (or color range), and each page profiles a different bright flower popping off the page. In these dreary Portland weeks it makes me think that maybe spring isn’t too far away.

Though I’ve always considered myself to be a green and yellow type of gal (both are represented in the book), I find myself constantly pulled back to the chapter on orange. There’s something about the soft peach of the Tulipa ‘Dordogne’ and the brighter tropical orange of the Fritillaria imperialis that makes me wonder how I can incorporate them into my garden this spring (or fall as is the case with planting tulip bulbs).

Fritillaria imperialis

Continue Reading »

Growing up, we were considered to be the country mice of the extended family as we lived on a one acre plot about 45 minutes from the “big city.” All of my cousins, aunts, and uncles lived on medium sized suburban city lots, and it was just understood that we lived in the wild, though my family religiously mowed the lawn at least once a week spring through fall.

Our huge expanse of a front yard was mostly lawn, as was our back yard, and even though we had fir, cedar, and fruit trees placed sporadically about, our street was about as suburban as you can get in the middle of the country.

It wasn’t until I moved to a small suburban apartment complex with an almost perfectly manicured lawn and grounds that I began to realize the similarities between the two places and started wondering what truly is wild.

In comes William Robinson — with Rick Darke — and The Wild Garden. William Robinson pioneered the naturalistic gardening style in Britain (home of the perfectly manicured lawn and sculpted boxwoods), and his style continues to influence gardeners across the globe today.

Timber author Rick Darke updated Robinson’s classic with gorgeous new photography, and some introductory chapters, and he has recently written an article for The American Gardener magazine that describes exactly “What is Wild?” (Link goes to a PDF.)

William Robinson and Rick Darke have shown me that you don’t have to live in the country to have a naturalistic, “wild” space.

Notes from Olivia:

It’s taken me a full week to catch my breath after the flurry of activity surrounding GWA, but I think everything is back to normal.

As usual, the symposium was packed with seeing old friends, greeting new acquaintances, and finally getting to meet people face to face after years of corresponding by phone and email.

The Timber/Storey booth was consistently hopping with activity—three author signings will do that. And I am happy to report that all of our books were completely gone by 2 o’clock on the last day of the exhibit. All I had to bring home were bookstands.

Our “Secrets of a Book Publicist” presentation went—I can happily say it went swimmingly!

Michael Taeckens, Publicity Director at Algonquin Books, talked about his publicity campaign for Wicked Plants by Amy Stewart (Center left). Amy Greeman (far right), Publicity Director at Storey Publishing, discussed Backyard Homestead, and I covered my publicity plan for Bringing Nature Home.

All in all it was a great trip, and I can’t wait to see everyone next year in Dallas!

Notes from Emma:

GWA is one of the only times in the year we get to meet our valued media and authors face to face. It is always such a treat to have conversations in person with the people we usually interact with through a keyboard. Everyone has traveled far and wide to connect with a group that shares the same passion — the energy and excitement is potent.

There were many new and familiar faces who brought life to the show, thankfully keeping our Timber/Storey booth lively from beginning to end. Photographer Saxon Holt shared stories of photographing the dazzling landscapes in The American Meadow Garden. Pam Baggett talked cannas and elephant ears while signing copies of Tropicalismo. Amy Stewart and the rest of the Garden Rant crew brought their usual vivacious, plant loving personalities. Patti Moreno of Garden Girl TV walked the grounds filming the action, while Joe Lamp’l talked about his new television series airing on PBS this spring. There was a strong feeling of good things to come with all things gardening.

Jennifer Bartley’s seminar The Seasonal Useful and Edible Garden was particularly inspiring. Her designs were smart and breathtaking, and her year-round use made me want to rush home and get to work on my own. She shared images of the pathways she and her sons created out of reclaimed bricks from a demolished building (so artistic, so affordable!). She showed images of the butternut squash soups and winter greens cooked from her winter harvests, and heirloom tomato salads and berry tarts from her summer harvests. It was a pleasant reminder that you can make use of your garden year-round—that you don’t have to pay $5 for kale in the winter if you just do a little planning. She lives in Columbus, Ohio—case in point. Hearing her speak and seeing her photographs whet my appetite for gardening and cooking. Can’t wait for her new seasonal harvest book next spring!

I look forward to seeing everyone again soon. Thanks for a great meeting this year!

In the grand scheme of things, four business trips a year doesn’t seem like much. But for me, four trips feels like a lot. I’ve been to Seattle for the Northwest Flower Show. I’ve been to New York twice–once for Book Expo America, and again last month for pitching New York media. Next week, I’m headed to the most anticipated event in the garden media world–the annual Garden Writers Symposium, this year held in Raleigh (September 23-26).

If you’ve never been to the Symposium, you’re probably wondering what it’s all about. Typically, the show has a two day exhibit, lots of seminars, fabulous garden tours, and an awards banquet. This year is no different, but there are a couple of differences for me in my third year of attendance.

Continue Reading »

I recently attended a Get Gardening! event with Ray Rogers, author of Pots in the Garden and Coleus. He spoke about many things: Color, line, form, space, and texture. But one thing that stood out to me was something he said in his introduction. He prefaced his talk by saying that many gardeners don’t take into consideration the needs of the plants when they work in the garden–they walk into a garden center or nursery, pick a plant they like, take it home, and just plunk it into the earth without thinking about water usage, light requirements, space needs, etc.

This struck me particularly hard when I got home and looked at my own garden. I had planned it for months before actually building the box this spring, and I had sketched the “look” of it on paper deciding that the 3’ x 3’ space (9, 1’ x 1’ gridded spaces) would be designed as such:

Continue Reading »

I am currently researching magazines as I prepare for a trip to New York to pitch Timber Press story and segment ideas to editors and television producers. The three that I have been reading this week–Every Day With Rachael Ray, Real Simple, and Metropolitan Home–have very different editorial styles and don’t have a strong focus on gardening, though they all dabble a little bit.

You can probably imagine my surprise then when reading the July/August Metropolitan Home’s “Letter from the Editor” about the joys and trials of her gardening experiences over the past few years. Having just started my first garden this year, it is a relief to know that some of the problems I’m facing aren’t just because I’m inexperienced — insects are nondiscriminatory when it comes to gardens, beginner or experienced, and I’m just happy I don’t have horses anywhere nearby that can lean over the fence and snack on my heirloom green tomatoes!

Continue Reading »