On sharing a book before anyone else has seen it, to the people you admire most, and what Costa Georgiadis sent back.
Putting a book out into the world is one thing. Sending it to the people you admire most, before it even properly exists, is something else entirely. When you make a book, your publisher asks for endorsements; it is how books find their way into the world. The request from Murdoch Books, when it came, was simple: can we please get three or four endorsements for the book? What it actually meant was that the first people outside me and my publisher ever to see it would see it as a PDF. Not even the final thing. And I had to work out who to send it to. Who, why, and how.
Almost everything in my world has happened through serendipity, and an extraordinary amount of it has happened through Cliffy's. Cliffy's is just the hub for everything good in my life. Simon Watt, one of the semi-retired producers of Gardening Australia, was in there one day talking to someone, and she said to him: do you know Natasha Morgan? You must find out about her. You must do a segment on Natasha Morgan. Lo and behold, a phone call, or an email, I honestly can't remember which, and we met. Simon is of this region too. These days he lives just on the other side of the hill from me, which is even more beautiful.
Somewhere in one of our early phone calls, as he was saying goodbye, I thought I heard him say something. Without thinking, I said, "Did you just call me, babe?" "No, no, no." It has become our in-house joke. He and his wife Bron call me babe now, and I call them babe, and somewhere along the way it has turned into the most beautiful term of endearment. Simon is so bloody generous and kind that he is the only person who would get away with it.
When the endorsement request came, it was Simon who made it his mission, literally his mission in the world, to put my book in front of every person he thought might want to read it. Which is how I came to be writing an email to Costa Georgiadis.
I was terrified of contacting Costa. He is one of those extraordinary beings who I suspect has a very similar brain to me; he is also a landscape architect. And he is busy. I mean so busy that I thought I had no hope in hell of him actually replying. I wrote the email on the 11th of March, and it was Simon who sent it, because Simon was the one with the connection: he had worked on Gardening Australia for so long, and he knew Costa personally. Then, nothing. Almost a fortnight of nothing. Simon checked in. "Have you heard back from Costa? I know he's very busy. I can't promise he's going to get back to you." So I emailed again, myself this time, and Costa wrote back the same day: he'd like to chat about the book, give him a call.
Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox)
I rang him. He was filming at the time, flat out, and he told me he'd had a flick through the book but hadn't yet read it from cover to cover. Even from a flick through, he said, he found it beautiful. The fonts, the layout, the way it all sits on the page. But he wanted to hear what the book was really about from me. "What's the book about?" So I told him. And this is the thing that stays with me most: he would not write an endorsement without reading the book, and he would not write one without talking to its author either. That says a lot about a person, I think: that they want to hear your voice on the phone, that they want to have the chat, before their name goes anywhere near your book. It felt very true, very real, and very aligned to me.
Once he had read the book, we talked again. That was the conversation where he shared just how extraordinary he thought it was, right down to the font size, the way the pull-out quotes sit in the text. He noticed things that only matter if you have been there. What I felt, listening to him, was relief, and pride, and, to be perfectly honest, emotional overwhelm. He really got it. He understood what it took to make a book.
He was filming through all of this, with a million and one other things going on, and the endorsement came down to the very end. The only way I finally got it over the line, literally at the eleventh hour, was a morning text message, a thing I would never normally do with someone I barely knew. It took a level of coaxing that I am not comfortable with in my ordinary, everyday way. I did it anyway, because it was Costa.
The last of those calls found me in the green room at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. My first time there on a media pass, feeling a little bit special and absolutely spent, because I had been busting my gut for months to pull everything together so the book could go to print, and the endorsements were the last thing. The absolute last thing. I had a meeting with my publishers half an hour later to wrap it all up, and I was stressing out, wondering whether Costa's words would reach me in time. They did. And when he did come through with the goods, my goodness, did he come through with the goods. I had asked him for an endorsement; he wrote me six, because he was just so enthused.
Whilst these might just be a few words on a page, the story behind them, and what they mean to me, is not something I can condense into anything short. It never ceases to amaze me what people will do, how far out of their way they will go, to champion what I do. Simon, putting my book into hands I could never have reached. Costa, who would not endorse a book without first ringing its author to ask what it was about. Melissa King and the Better Homes and Gardens family, the Gardening Australia family, the people who come to my workshops. The book is not even on people's bookshelves yet, and extraordinary people are already carrying it out into the world. Of everything that has come from making it, I think that is the biggest gift.
In September 2024 I made a decision to share far more of what I do: the blog, the monthly garden tasks, all of it freely given. I gift that work because I am so grateful for what people give and share of me, and it is the paid work, the workshops, the book itself, that makes the gifting possible.
I will be forever grateful to Costa, and to Simon, and to this community, for the way they carry what I do. The Productive Garden Companion is out on the 15th of September. Costa's endorsements are below, all six of them. I tried to choose between them and I have decided not to.
“As a genuine gardening companion, Natasha's book is a place filled with care and trust alongside equal serves of curiosity and enchantment. It equips the reader with the motivation and skill to take action and sow the seeds of a life with nature in their day to day.”
“The Productive Garden Companion is an incredibly articulate and extensive invitation to explore and understand how and why connecting with nature and community through gardening can supercharge your life. Natasha is your companion whose experience and curiosity will bring an enchantment and wonder to the actions you'll be inspired to undertake. Buckle up and enjoy the meander.”
“The Productive Garden Companion is an open invitation for anyone getting started with or growing along in gardening. Natasha speaks from experience, walks alongside us with genuine care and trust and fills the journey with curiosity and enchantment. This book is a big welcome hug back to nature.”
“The Productive Garden Companion is practical, incredibly extensive and a genuinely inspiring call to gardening action. Natasha's story telling has a step by step simplicity that connects the dots from planning and design to sustainability, community and everything in between. It is a timeless reference for every gardener.”
“We all need companions. Life is better when we do things together. And Natasha makes the perfect partner to guide us into the enchanting, abundant and beautiful world of growing a garden. Extensive, informative and practical step by step yarns will have you seeking space to get sowing and growing.”
“Gardening is the language of nature and life but like any language it needs to be learnt. The Productive Garden Companion is the bridge and invitation that paves your path back to nature. Natasha's story telling combines first hand experience and practical step by step know how with a curiosity that will have you sowing ideas and taking action: informed, confident and unstoppable.”
Costa Georgiadis
Landscape architect, environmental educator and host of ABC TV's Gardening Australia
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