The Lifelong Gardener Book:
It’s Launched!

On August 20th my first book, The Lifelong Gardener, Garden with Ease and Joy at Any Age, officially launched and is available in bookstores across the country, on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, and Goodreads.

Considered to be “the gardening book for seniors”, it was quite a thrill to walk into my local bookstore, The Book Passage in Corte Madera, and see my 2+ year labor of love on their bookshelves!

So, what do you do after you’ve launched your renaissance career and published your first book?

You gather all the contributors to the book, family, and friends and celebrate of course! It was such a joy to look around my summer garden and see the faces of the community that helped me birth my book into being.

Since draft #1 of the book, I knew I wanted to profile other gardeners, so I could tell their stories of resilience, and how effective they were incorporating adaptive gardening solutions.

Throughout the writing of the book, we photographed friends in their gardens and on location in public gardens and nurseries. Some folks submitted their own stories and shared their photos for how they embraced change and found solutions that kept them gardening with ease and joy.

Of course, some of my dearest friends were there, as was my super supportive husband Tim, my collaborator and photographer Heidi Hornberger, and my get-it-done friend, Nancy Harvey, all who cheered me on and helped make the ribbon cutting launch a success. I celebrate them all. I couldn’t have done it without them!

I must admit, sharing the story of the two-year journey it took me to get to the ribbon-cutting day, I shed a few tears of joy while the champagne flowed and guests devoured our lovely ‘book cake’.

Staying true to my Italian heritage, of course one celebration was not enough, so I traveled to my sister Carole’s home outside of Chicago where we had our annual la famiglia reunion. With sixty family and friends in attendance, it was a joy to see cousins and relatives from all over the country again, and share the launch of my book with my family that has been cheering me on throughout my life.

While in Chicago and Wisconsin, I also took another big leap and started doing radio interviews, which was a whole new experience for me. It was a dream come true to be featured on many health-oriented radio shows throughout the country, where I had the opportunity to share ideas on how to create healthy, active, and rewarding lifestyles by embracing a resilient attitude and incorporating adaptive living practices. 

To date I’ve now been featured on more than twenty five radio shows throughout the US, including a number of gardening shows that are helping their listeners garden smarter, not harder, and delivering tips and sharing resources how they can take empowered action, so they can garden for life.

Since returning home from the midwest, I ventured back out on the road to attend the annual GardenComm conference in Salt Lake City, which I’ll be sharing more about in my next blog post.

The choice to write and launch a book with a national publisher has been quite a journey, and just like life can be — it has been filled with more challenges and joys than I could have ever imagined.  

I’m thrilled that I did it and to be where I am now — having more fun than I thought possible at 71 years old. It is a joy to share my message of hope and resilience and how we can find new ways to adapt so we can continue to do the things we love.   

It’s been quite fun ride the past few months, and now I’m looking forward to the shift of the seasons, and the quieter, cozy winter months, where I’ll have an opportunity to catch up on my blog writing.  I have loads to share with you about the experiences I had and the people I met during my book launch travels.

This work has meaning for me because I have you to share it with.  As always, I look forward to your comments and questions.

Ciao Bella!

It was at times a rollercoaster-of-a-ride, but worth every minute!