This photographer-author team sought out the most truly original gardens to feature here: those that exude personality quirks, use cleverly repurposed materials, and immediately reveal the owners absolute obsessions with plants. Photographs by nationally published and Monrovia Nursery principal photographer Doreen Wynja celebrate handmade features like archways made of gnarled branches, sculptures made from found objects, and hand-welded fences. Accompanying descriptive texts by author and longtime Seattle Times gardening columnist Lorene Edwards Forkner work to bring the reader deep into the garden, shine light on what makes the owners feel compelled to continue developing their gardens themes, and highlight their unusual or remarkable collections of plants and objects. The mix of high plant/horticultural knowledge and a love of artistically repurposed everyday materials as low-cost but unique features will strike a chord with all those who dream of upgrading their own gardens on a regular mortal s budget. Deep captions full of plant ID info bring the possibility home for readers to emulate planting designs and combinations that they see on the page.
Doreen Wynja has been shooting plants and gardens for over thirty years, and has been the principal photographer for Monrovia Nursery for the past twenty. Her work has been published in numerous books and magazines, including Landscape Architecture Magazine, Garden Design, Fine Gardening, the American Gardener, Marin Magazine, the Seattle Times, and the Oregonian. She makes her home in Oregon s wine country. Lorene Edwards Forkner has been the weekly gardening columnist for the Seattle Times for nearly fifteen years and is the author of several gardening books including Color In and Out of the Garden (Abrams, 2022), The Beginner s Guide to Growing Great Vegetables (Timber, 2021), and Now Is the Time for Trees (with the Arbor Day Foundation, 2022). She also contributes regularly to the popular gardening blog GardenRant. She lives and gardens in West Seattle.
