How I Wrote My New Book, "Garden Disruptors," 3

“Would you come look at my juniper trees? Actually, we should talk a new design for the entire estate from the gates to the beach.” In the dark dining room of a castle of house in the Hamptons, an American beauty sat next to me. Candlelight and her black dress made her blond hair and her fair face float. Grandiose flowers on the table meant I could talk only to her as the dahlias obscured the rest of our company. She was nice, but I’d never heard of her show, Sex in the City, or her movies. I pretended. She wasn’t fooled.

This elaborate dinner, this three-day trip, was actually a recruiting interview. I was being wined and dined, seduced by a huge landscape firm specialized in extremely lucrative, outrageous ‘garden’ making in the richest enclaves of the Northeast.

Earlier, we’d toured elaborate nurseries and gardens. “We bought these trees from an old estate on the Hudson, dug them, barged them in,” they’d said proudly. The trees looked sick to me. The stilted gardens bored me. The evening conversation about expensive things like cars, wine, and second homes went over my head. After dinner, we sat by a fire for cocktails. I fell asleep.

We’ve all been there, right? We’ve all been at a fork in the road that we understand will change our life. One path leads to a certain kind of success but requires conformity and compromise. The other path, bumpier but fun, leads to another kind of success. Through my life, I’ve usually let my heart choose the route.

Way down our muddy, dirt road, in the midst of Covid lockdown winter, not many cars passed, and few visitors were allowed. Mornings, Tom and I walked through the flower fields with a shovel, then put bulbs through specialized washing, drying, and packing. We’d honed our system. That was a good thing as people in lockdown all over the country were ordering plants like crazy. We’d get boxes to the postman and take the afternoon for quiet work. Plenty to do, but still, being careful, limiting contact with people meant the highlight of the week was our little Facebook Live on the Farm show.

We’d cultivated this little farm for decades. People thought my Dad was crazy for buying a falling-down place in the country. People thought I was crazy for starting a bulb specialty nursery focused on a disdained, old-fashioned flower. A worldwide catastrophe tanked the garden design part of business but made our bulb orders thrive. Others’ jobs and careers stopped.

Since his speaking and traveling life halted, a friend of a friend had time to offer me some advice. A fascinating guy, he’d spent an entire year following the route of the chicken — from ancient jungle fowl to modern suburban fast food. An award-winning author of three popular science and culture books, he read some of my stories, my unorganized piles, and said, “Here’s what you have to do to make it a real book.” He meant well and with his enthusiasm, I wanted the success he’d built. He knew the publishing world. I listened. The prospect of being a full-time author with books published by big companies, dinners in New York with agents, book tours, and research thrilled me.

After packing plant orders, every afternoon, alone in the barn office, I worked on this plan. It felt more like a prescription to get Jenks’ haphazard writing and sentimental story collecting in order.

First step; distill the stories and ideas into a one-page synopsis. “Focus on the social issues.” He particularly liked my chapter on racism in horticulture. “The skeleton of the book is a cultural criticism, anthropology, backed up with your rich stories.” We emailed back and forth, edits and critiques, changes, and redrafts. When perfected, this would become a pitch for agents in New York.

But when perfected, it wasn’t my book anymore. This wasn’t my road. The process helped immensely. I’d clarified goals for the new book. I now had an outline and a big story to tie together all my stories of odd folks with plant passions. But I would need to take a journalistic approach in places. My observations and thoughts could do with backup and discussion from professionals in other fields. I jumped in.

I started searching for plant connections between West Africa and South Carolina. In the midst of Covid, the College of Charleston library required an appointment. Alone in a dark and cold room, I read through handwritten and typed notes of man named John Bennet. His book, ‘Some Neglected Aspects of the African Trade’ mentioned lots of plants and gave me lots of background.

One trail led to another. I could do this all day. I didn’t limit myself to English language history either. I ‘met’ online a librarian in Brazil who invited me to do the same in the Royal Portuguese Library, which is actually housed in Brazil. There must be piles of unread ships’ journals, ethnobotany notes, and unlimited rabbit holes there.

This was all thrilling, exciting, and seductive in a way movie stars and million-dollar gardens never could be. But I realized soon enough to save myself that this was PhD work. I’d need a trust fund to do this. To take this road, I’d also need to make the sacrifices just like the opportunities in New York gardens required. Even if I found the money, I’d have to leave my muddy dirt road, my family and business, and I’d have to leave behind the book I really wanted to write.

I needed journalist’s skills, interviews, and research, but to keep my book on track, I had to learn to limit that. I had my outline and synopsis now. I needed to do something that’s difficult for me. I needed to sit in this farm office, down this bumpy dirt road, and organize, write, and focus. But the plan wouldn’t work without the help of one man, the man who’d pushed, led, and inspired South Carolina public gardening.

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