Interview with gardener and author, Sharon Lovejoy
Sharon Lovejoy is a gardener, a naturalist, a watercolor illustrator, and an award winning garden and nature writer. Her home and garden creations have appeared in numerous books and magazines and Sharon has been a guest on countless radio and television shows from coast to coast.
Her first book, Sunflower Houses was published in 1991 by Interweave Press (reissued in 2001 by Workman Publishing). Since then she has published Trowel & Error: Over 700 Shortcuts, Tips & Remedies for the Gardener (Workman, 2003); A Day in the Garden (Galison, 2003), an illustrated journal; Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots: Gardening Together with Children (Workman, 1999); and Hollyhock Days: Garden Discoveries for the Young at Heart (Interweave Press, 1994). She has also contributed to many others books.
Sharon writes and illustrates the regular feature column "Heart's Ease" for Country Living GARDENER magazine. Her writing is distributed by The New York Times Syndicate and has appeared in Northern New England Journey, Woman's Day, Family Life, Country America, The American Horticulturist, The Herb Companion, and many other publications.
As a recognized gardening expert, Sharon has lectured throughout the United States for over twenty years.
She currently serves on the National Children and Youth Garden Advisory Panel of the American Horticultural Society.
It is my pleasure to interview Ms. Lovejoy and learn her feelings about her career and gardening.
What inspired your interest in writing and illustrating books about gardening?
Gardening has been a passion since my childhood in my Grandmother Lovejoy's bountiful cottage garden. She not only introduced me to gardening, but also to the joys of reading. I understood early on that I could lose myself in Frances Hodgson Burnett's Secret Garden or in Heidi's mountain home. Reading became one of the most important things in my life, an escape and an opening up of my world. Reading gave me wings, and I decided that I too could write someday and give others wings.
Of all your books, which has been your most favorite project?
I love my first book Sunflower Houses because it grew slowly and naturally from my notes and journals and love of research. It is a crazy quilt of garden memories, traditions, lore, and projects. I guess I never realized that it would someday become a real book, but it did and thanks to loyal readers and a Book Sense pick it is now in its 11th printing. I have been so fortunate. Readers from all over the world have sent photographs of their sunflower houses and other projects, and their letters have been real soul food for me.
What topic do you enjoy writing about the most and why?
I think that I gravitate toward garden critters that are misunderstood or maligned. For instance, I thoroughly loved writing my "Heart's Ease" columns for Country Living GARDENER magazine about spiders, bats, snakes, wasps, bumblebees, etc.. The response from readers is gratifying and when someone writes that they will no longer kill something (usually a response triggered by fear), I am grateful and feel as though I have done a small part in making the world a more gentle place.
In your career, which came first, the writing or the watercolor illustrating?
I began drawing when I was a youngster, and I can look back through my work for many years and see that I have always had my own vision and style of interpreting things, sort of a shorthand of an image. This didn't sit well with my art professors in college who wanted me to paint bigger images, brighter forms, and less realistic interpretations. But, in the end I just stuck to what I knew and loved - simple watercolors of beloved objects and animals, and it worked for me. My first editor at Country Living GARDENER, Nina Williams, encouraged me to illustrate my columns for each issue and to be true to myself. I am true to myself, but as I look back at some of my old children's books, I see how much those illustrations influence me even today.
Does anything surprise you working with children in gardening activities?
Children continually surprise, amaze, and delight me. I spent a week this summer as an Artist-in-Residence at the Leila Arboretum in Battle Creek, Michigan. The children were wonderful, enthusiastic, and full of an insatiable sense of wonder that I wish could be kept alive forever. I always learn by teaching children.
What has been the most significant turning point in your career?
I think that was when Workman Publishing, which is one of the last and greatest independent publishers, took me on and encouraged me to always use my "voice" when writing. They didn't want any pat replies to things; they wanted to hear my opinions about nature, and they stood behind me in all my work. I lucked out and got a brilliant editor who guided me through some rough spots, but in the end she made a better, more focused writer out of me.
Tell us a bit about your own gardening efforts.
For many years I cultivated a large community garden around my herb and gardening business Heart's Ease (after which my Country Living GARDENER column is named) in Cambria, California. I had a traditional herb and perennial garden punctuated by heirloom roses, a native garden, and a good-sized children's garden. All of the gardens were used by thousands of people and groups of children. Six years ago, when my writing and illustrating became more than a full-time job, I sold half the property and the business. I miss the gardens and the constant stream of wonderful visitors.
I also have a large native garden and pond at my home in California. It is specifically planted for the critters who fly or crawl into my yard. Lots of native berries for the birds, many salvia, penstemon, and heuchera for the hummingbirds and insects, a large terrace with dozens of potted specimens (some of which have been in my life for 30 years!), half a dozen birdbaths, a huge, old fountain where everything from bushtits to red-shouldered hawks bathe, and a remnant garden from the original owner, the head gardener at Hearst Castle. In the 1940s, he planted camellias, which are now over 10 feet tall, and many other things I wouldn't necessarily choose for our oak and pine forest landscape, but I honor their lives and care for them as I do for everything else in the garden.
We spend half of every year in a tiny seaside cottage on an island in Maine. There I garden only in window boxes and terra cotta pots because I can't stand the idea of disturbing the native bayberries, blueberries, lady slipper orchids, lilies, etc.. No one can improve on what is already there.
Who influenced you the most towards gardening?
My early days and nights alongside my Grandmother Lovejoy. She was an early member of the Audubon Society and a teacher and a gardener extraordinaire. She taught me by example, which is the way every child should be taught.
Looking through your bookshelf, what are your top three reference books, and why?
I guess I would have to say that many of my book choices seem to come from earlier decades and the one I treasure most is Island Garden (first published in 1894) by Celia Thaxter and illustrated by Childe Hassam. This is considered the most beautiful American garden book ever written. I bought an original copy many years ago and was then fortunate to travel over to the Isles of Shoals off our coast (Maine) and to work in the gardens Celia wrote about so eloquently. What I most love about this book is the depth of her knowledge and her sensitivity to every living thing (except slugs!) in her garden.
I also love Gardening With a Wild Heart: Restoring California's Native Landscapes at Home by Judith Larner Lowry, most known for her superior seed source, Larner's Seeds. She is an opinionated and well informed gardener who deserves more respect and recognition. This is a regional reference, but I think gardeners everywhere can harvest many ideas from Judith's wisdom.
These are the only two I can pinpoint, but as a whole I turn to proven references such as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden publications, some of the Rodale books, and the Sunset Western Garden Book (though I don't always agree with everything they say!), Perennials for American Gardens by Ruth Rogers Clausen, and for gardens in Maine and much of New England, I love Gardens Maine Style by my friends Rebecca Sawyer Fay and Lynn Karlin.
I also subscribe to the Common Sense Pest Control Quarterly, which is published by the Bio-Integral Resource Center. That little magazine is invaluable for a multitude of problems. I know this is MORE than you asked for, but these all mean a great deal to me.
What are your favorite or perhaps easiest plants to grow?
Oh gosh, my favorite plants??? There must be hundreds. I love sunflowers; they're easy to grow and they are such great personality plants and so good for hummingbirds, butterflies, beneficial bees, etc. They are always full of life, even on the darkest of nights. Just go outside with a flashlight and check their blooming faces; they'll be loaded with exquisite nectaring moths. I always have to plant hollyhocks alongside the sunflowers. Hollyhocks are the plants of my childhood, and I used them for everything from fairy food to flower brides and lightning bug lanterns.
I love native plants, especially chaparral and woodland species, and I have been very successful with a line of Heucheras I purchased from the wonderful nursery at the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and some I am trial-testing for Terra Nova Nurseries. The Heucheras do well in containers and in high shade under our oaks and pines. The tiny, fairy-like blossoms attract beneficial insects and hummers too. But, my favorite native (and possibly my favorite plant) are the shining, golden-orange California poppies set off with a splash of baby-blue-eyes and lupine. Wow, hillsides and meadows of these are heartbreakingly beautiful.
I am also partial to penstemon and salvias, both exquisite plants with blooms for the hummers. Lately I have become smitten with tiny succulents and cacti. I plant them in shallow, square terra cotta trays, and arrange them like textiles. Their gray-blue coloring, sculptural shapes, and textures are beautiful.
Do you have a favorite gardening tool?
Believe it or not, my favorite tool is a large silver spoon that once belonged to my Grandmother. I carry it in my bathrobe pocket (or leave it sticking in a pot of soil somewhere). My soil is so rich and friable I can easily use this tool, but if not this then I have a trowel made for me by my brother-in-law Brian Arnold over 25 years ago, and I have my Grandpa Clarke's old blue-handles hedge clippers. The paint is all worn off the grip area, and it makes me happy just to know how often he used them.
What environmental issue is closest to your heart?
My heart is very big, so I have LOTS of environmental issues to consider. First of all, I feel that we all as gardeners have the obligation to keep our planet free of pesticides, herbicides, etc.. We must keep our water sources unpolluted and protect our watersheds; we must keep our soil clean and viable, our air breathable (no relaxed standards please Mr. President), our oceans clean, and our landscapes diverse, for a diverse environment can be most healthy. I fear deforestation and destruction of habitat and have witnessed firsthand the diminished numbers of songbirds passing through my gardens. I want our beautiful planet, which is such a miracle, to be cherished and passed along to the next generation as a healthy environment heading toward the light.
Please share with us the most valuable lesson you have learned in gardening?
How that just moving a tiny leaf or a pot or a plant can disturb a world. It may not be my world, but it is the world to some creature. I have learned to be more gentle.
What are you currently working on now?
I am just finishing A Blessing of Toads: a nature lover's guide to gardening (Hearst Books). It will be over 300 pages and filled with my favorite "Heart's Ease" columns, new art work, and fresh boxed information for those with a hankering to do their own thing, whether it be in the garden, with houseplants, or working with herbs. It should be released in Spring 2004.
I am also finishing a children's book (ages 2 to 6), which is a picture book about colors and the critters living on a tiny Maine island. I am researching and writing another Maine book, and working on a cookbook for the future. The cookbook focuses on old fashioned traditions, tools, and recipes and will include menus from some of my best friends. And, I am always working on another column for Country Living GARDENER or for the New York Times Syndicate.
Is there any question that you wished I had asked?
Perhaps a question about my "girls," my huge bin of red wigglers. I don't ever waste a clipping or a piece of garbage. Everything (except meat) goes into the covered vermicomposting bin (for which I give directions in my books Trowel & Error and Roots, Shoots , Buckets & Boots) It takes many gallons of one of our most precious resources, WATER, to run a meal's worth of garbage through a disposal. A worm bin can turn culinary disasters into wonderful black gold for the garden. I mulch everything with my worm castings, and I can't imagine a life without a thriving family of worms.
Visit Sharon Lovejoy's website at www.sharonlovejoy.com.
Emily reviewed Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots a while ago on her "Bookworms" page.