A lovely, Universe-aligning sort of day where I got loads of work done on my book – finally getting my teeth into something – and had a great chat with a fellow writer/curator about a new festival at the Garden Museum in June focussing on herbs. Someone I was thinking of contacting anyway just yesterday.
It’s now been a year since my ode to all things herbal The Heritage Herbal came out, and when I should have been promoting the book I’ve been mainly homeschooling. The content is all there though and so I’m super excited to be asked to be part of this celebration of herbs and to consider that a festival of any kind can even go ahead. Already conjugating ideas for a talk on the history, uses and importance of herbs and herbals delivered through the format of a herb pressing workshop. Thinking about pressing the herbs in the herbals… or maybe even my books as that was always one of my masterplans!
Herbs will also be featuring in abundance in my new book to be published in Spring 2022 – The Modern Gardener. When a book includes a directory of plants, as this one does, I often start the flatplanning there (even though this section usually appears at the back) as formulating and then editing this list often throws up additional ideas or interesting connection. The first list is always twice as long as I’m allowed – 100 plants in this case – but there’s lots of fun to be had with ‘The Edit’. I’m almost there on my definitive list but the other 100 will probably find a way to sneak on anyway, through box outs of variations or suitable alternatives.
Part of the edit is also confirming the order of plants. Should it be A to Z, split into handy sections, arranged by genus name or family, or by common name. As this is a co-edition book, Latin botanical names have an extra strength as they are applicable to all international markets. In this case, I’m going for a sectional divide – a main grouping of ornamentals and edibles further split into foliage (possibly giving ferns and palms their own sections), flowers, bromeliads, orchids, trailers and climbers, cacti, succulents, herbs, spices, fruits and veg. Almost there but there are just so many beauties to choose from!
Just printing out my list so I can take it to bed with me and sleep on it. This is quite a general book and I need to cater for the readers on both sides of the pond (UK and US) but I want to make it personal as well so it will be interesting to see what the final mix is. One thing is for sure – herbs will definitely be a big part of it.
Also, in case anyone is missing my informed posts about the weather, it absolutely chucked it down today. Big gusting gales of horizontal rain like I was on the high seas or something! Kind of refreshing, if you’re indoors!