UPS sent me an email they left a package on my doorstep. I wasn’t expecting anything from Amazon, so I decided to check it out. I saw the return address was from Timber Press, my publisher. It took my breath away! Oh my God, it must be … yes, it’s the advance copy of my book!
I screamed for Tim to join me. He had no idea why my hands were shaking or why the tears were flowing until he saw me ripping the package apart. The endless hours of writing and editing were behind me; it took two years from the time I signed the contract, but now … it was finally real. The Lifelong Gardener, Garden for Ease & Joy at Any Age was born!
The first person I called was my dear friend, Heidi Hornberger, my photographer for the book. From the first moment she heard about it, she was fascinated with the subject and totally vested in my mission to enable senior gardeners. As she grew into being my collaborator, simultaneously she became re-invigorated with her love of gardening. We had such fun doing all the photoshoots, but then how could we miss? Each photo was taken in a beautiful public or private garden filled with gorgeous flowers. To make it even more of a blessing, our models were thrilled to help out and they all came from a joyful place. We’ll be getting together for my first book launch on August 10th. I can’t wait to share the book with everyone who contributed.
In the end, there are 181 photographs in the book, and Heidi shot and edited 117 of them, with her keen eye and an extra dose of love. Her dedication to the project from day one and she made this extraordinarily daunting process one of grace and ease. Thank you, Heidi, I couldn’t have done it without you!
Now for a quick funny story … One day we were at Annie’s Annuals and Perennials in Richmond taking photographs of the many tools in the book. One of my favorite tools is the Radius weeder, but guess what … we couldn’t take the photos we had in mind because we were hard-pressed to find a weed anywhere in the nursery!! Heidi and I found Annie, the owner, and the three of us had a good laugh over that one!