Books on the night

Signed copies will be available to buy at the event.

If you would like to be certain of a copy, you can order the book here and collect it on the night. It helps us know how many to bring.

If you have already pre-ordered a copy, bring it along for signing.

Getting there

Car: There is lots of parking on Victoria Road or South Crescent.
Train: The Dennis Train Station is a 2 minute walk.
Bus: The 251 bus stop is directly across the road.

If the event sells out

Once the 90 places are taken, the event is sold out. Keep an eye on the events page for further dates on the tour.

The evening

This is the first event of the book’s calendar, and it is happening in the company of so many of you who had a hand in getting it here. Contributors. Collaborators. Friends. Supporters. Everyone who watched this book grow from an idea into something real. The evening is as much a thank you as it is a launch.

We are gathering at Firecracker, my dear friend Cassie Lucas’s event space in Northcote. A fitting home, given Cass and I met while we were both studying, teaching and later working together in landscape architecture, before Cass turned her hand to hospitality, events and everything that makes any moment spent in her company something truly special.

There will be drinks, snacks and a little Natasha Morgan botanical goodness. A few words. A chance to grab a signed copy. And time to gather and catch up with some of the contributors, collaborators and friends whose work sits inside the pages.

About the book

The Productive Garden Companion is a practical, reassuring and visually rich modern gardening book that meets gardeners wherever they are, from windowsill pots to generous acreage. Landscape architect and lifelong gardener Natasha Morgan shows how thoughtful design, seasonal rhythms and purposeful planting can transform any space.

Part narrative, part landscape design bible, it traces Natasha’s personal relationship with gardening and invites readers to see their own gardens as sources of productivity and creativity, as well as connection and healing.

Featuring photography by Emily Weaving.

What people are saying:

‘A productive garden isn’t just about the harvest, it’s about the community, the lessons and the beauty you gather along the way.

Natasha captures these moments beautifully sharing what she’s gathered in her professional and personal journey so far through study, observation, teaching and hands in the soil gardening.

More than just a companion, this book will be your best mate when starting your own productive garden.’

Tim Pilgrim

Horticulturist, garden designer and author of Wild by Design

‘This is my favourite kind of garden writing - that which emerges from one person’s love of, and intimacy with, one piece of land. Of course its scope is broader than that, but its breadth has its source in this one, life-giving relationship.’

Michael McCoy

Garden designer, author and host of ABC TV’s Dream Gardens

‘This is the book I'll press into the hands of anyone who's ever stood in their garden and felt uncertain where to start. Natasha Morgan writes with the warmth of a friend and the wisdom of someone who has truly lived this arc.

A generous, grounded companion for anyone who wants their garden to be more than just productive, but also to be meaningful. Natasha's approach to beauty, seasonality and place feels like a deep breath of fresh air.’

Kirsten Bradley - Milkwood Permaculture

Permaculture educator, grower and author

‘Natasha shows how observation and curiosity of both nature and gardens are so important. Her garden is both productive, beautiful, and is achievable - any gardener will love her ideas.

It’s a beautifully presented book.’

Jane Edmanson OAM

Horticulturalist, author and former Gardening Australia presenter

‘The Productive Garden Companion draws on Natasha’s professional landscape design and lived experience along with insights from a diverse range of other practitioners to create a book that is both deeply personal and profoundly practical.  Dip into what piques your interest, dive into what inspires you to action. It’s a book for all moods and all seasons.’

Chris Russell

Director & Chief Executive, Office of the Director, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

‘Gardens and works of beauty created by the human hand are more important than ever. It's in these spaces that we are given opportunity to connect with the divinity of the natural world and to explore what it stirs within us. Natasha has created a thoughtful and quintessentially human guide to working with nature to create your own haven of beauty, life and solace.’
Paul West 

​​Chef, gardener and author; former host of River Cottage Australia and co‑founder of Grow It Local

‘Natasha has an innate connection to nature and beauty, reflected in everything she creates—from her stunning garden designs to this remarkable book celebrating productive gardens in all their joyful forms. Her passion for gardening is evident on every beautifully crafted page. It’s a book that belongs just as much on a coffee table as it does in the garden - lovingly spattered with dirt!’
Melissa King
Horticulturist and television presenter on Better Homes and Gardens

‘As a long time gardener and communicator, I started reading this manuscript with that here we go again feeling. This is anything but. Yes, it is a useful reference that you can go back to time and time again, but it is so much more. It is the story of a passionate gardener, warts and all, showing how one can evolve as a gardener and a human being into an understanding of the big pictures that make up all of existence. I recommend this to all, no matter if you are a first time gardener or a serious professional or even a non-gardener, but perhaps a student of the human condition. Well done Natasha. By the way, the pictures are sublime.’

Stephen Ryan 

Horticulturist, author and nursery owner; former host of ABC TV’s Gardening Australia

Dicksonia Rare Plants, Patron of the Royal Horticultural Society of Victoria

‘This is far more than a gardening book—it is a thoughtful and deeply personal exploration of how gardens can shape the way we live, think and connect. Drawing on lived experience, design practice and an ethic of care, the author offers a generous framework for creating spaces that are both productive and meaningful. What stands out is the emphasis on observation, seasonality and relationship to place, rather than prescriptive rules or trends.
For designers, gardeners and anyone seeking a more grounded, intentional life, this book is both guide and companion—one you will return to across seasons and stages.’

Dr Sue Anne Ware

Head of School of Design and the Built Environment, Curtin University

‘Natasha writes with the quiet wisdom of someone who truly listens to land and seasons. This book is a gentle but powerful reminder that living well starts with attention, care, and meeting our obligations to land and each other.’

Tammi Jonas

Agroecologist, farmer and Food Sovereignty Alliance

‘Natasha shares a very personal journey as both a passionate gardener and landscape architect with all sorts of learnings for the reader, with a brilliant balance of principles, practices, personality and productivity that can be applied to any garden regardless of its size.’

Angus Stewart

Horticulturist, author and former Gardening Australia presenter

‘Natasha writes with honesty and grace about what it truly means to live in rhythm with the land and the abundance each season offers. Comprehensive, inclusive, and deeply personal, this inspiring book is grounded in lived experience - both her own and the many diverse voices she weaves together. The result is a generous and beautifully grounded guide to cultivating not just a garden, but a way of living we should all be striving for.’

Christian Douglas

Christian Douglas Design and author of The Food Forward Garden

‘Natasha speaks to all of us who wish to do a little more and do a little better in the care of ourselves, our communities and our planet. A book of great scope and warmth. Words that guide you through the melding of productive and beautiful garden design, to a place where both your heart and your belly are full.’

Annie Smithers
Chef, farmer and author

‘Natasha Morgan has a wonderful ability to see gardens not only for their beauty, but for the food they can grow and the communities they can bring together. In The Productive Garden Companion, she shares an honest and personal journey that will resonate with anyone wanting to create a thoughtful and meaningful garden of their own.’

Jim Fogarty

Landscape Architect, Director Jim Fogarty Design

‘Natasha’s methods are applicable for anyone growing vegetables in small spaces. I really like her approach and the way she explains it.’

Charles Dowding

No Dig gardening pioneer, author and horticulturalist

‘I first met Natasha many years ago when I was doing my first book, The Foraged Home. When I started working on my second book, Living Wild, I knew that I wanted Natasha to be part of it. Natasha is such a generous person who invited me into her home and helped me in many ways whilst I was in Australia. Her home and garden are an oasis. Not only that, Natasha is the kind of person who generously shares her knowledge, and I think this book will be a wonderful companion, not only an insight into her world, but also on how to create a garden yourself. She is truly inspiring.’

Joanna Maclennan

Photographer and author

‘Natasha has imagined, designed, built, planted and nurtured a garden that is a place of not only physical beauty but nutritional sustenance and emotional refuge. She has also fastidiously documented and catalogued her journey and now has generously laid out a clear pathway for others to follow in her footsteps.’

Richard Cornish

Food writer, journalist, author, photographer

For contributor and media enquiries, please contact sueb@murdochbooks.com

Natasha Morgan

Natasha Morgan is a landscape architect, lifelong gardener, educator and author living in Daylesford, Central Victoria. She spent six years as a senior landscape architect on the Australian Garden (Stage 2) at the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne, and has been teaching landscape design and horticulture for more than twenty years, including at RMIT and the University of Melbourne. She is the creator of Oak & Monkey Puzzle in Spargo Creek, the five-acre garden she tended for eight years, and Little Cottage on a Hill in Daylesford — the 515 square metres she gardens now, and the setting for much of her debut book, The Productive Garden Companion (Murdoch Books, September 2026). Natasha's writing and teaching share the same conviction: any garden, at any scale, can produce food, beauty and a life worth living.

Cassie Lucas — Firecracker Event

Cassie Lucas is the founder and creative director of Firecracker Event, the Melbourne creative agency that has been assembling produce, props and people for launches, weddings and celebrations since 2012. A trained landscape architect (a background she happens to share with Natasha), Cassie brings an unusually spatial eye to the way food, styling and service come together in a room — Firecracker prefers the word "feeding" to "catering," which tells you most of what you need to know about the ethos. She now runs the business from Firecracker HQ in Northcote, with the neighbourhood snack bar Onlys attached, which is also the home of Natasha's Melbourne launch on 17 September.

firecrackerevent.com

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