Vancouver mates, I’m celebrating the launch of The Wild & Free Backyard, and I need you to hitch me.
In case you have been following me for some time, you would possibly discover it unusual to study that I haven’t hosted a launch get together for any of my earlier books. Fortunate quantity 13, I suppose!
However actually, this one has landed totally different. The Wild & Free Backyard is rooted in group, stuffed with native gardeners, shared data, borrowed instruments, and seeds handed from hand at hand. It’s meant to be celebrated via gathering.
The e book launch will happen on February 25 on the MONOVA, Museum of North Vancouver. Tickets are $33, which incorporates one signed copy of The Wild & Free Backyard, in addition to occasion admission for 2 company and a particular goodie from West Coast Seeds.
Get your tickets right here.
Extra particulars on the launch and the e book under!
The Wild & Free Backyard is my 13th e book. I can hardly consider that I’ve written a mean of a e book a yr since I signed my first e book contract. I’m grateful to have the chance to jot down books and have them revealed; it’s really a dream job.
With 13 books, creating new articles on Backyard Remedy, journal contributions, and talking occasions, it’s no surprise I haven’t made the time to host a e book launch earlier than.
I had deliberate to do an enormous launch for Backyard Alchemy in February 2020. It actually felt like one price celebrating, and I had a complete e book tour scheduled for that spring. And properly…you recognize what occurred subsequent. Occasions and journey had been cancelled, and we started social distancing at residence.
My subsequent two books, Regenerative Backyard and The Huge Ebook of Botanical Crafts, had been each launched in 2022, however by then, e book launches had been removed from my thoughts. I didn’t actually attend occasions or host events anymore. All of it felt a bit forgotten.
A lot has modified since then. In our work and live-from-home areas, all of us turned busier than ever and extra remoted. There appeared to be a correlation between the comfort and entry to buying issues and the inconvenience and lack of entry to social connections.
After transferring homes twice, I set upon constructing a brand new backyard once more from scratch, and I made a decision this backyard could be constructed from used or reclaimed supplies. For the associated fee financial savings, sure, but additionally for the discount of waste.
The sharing economic system turned my first cease to buy the supplies I wanted, and I usually discovered distinctive high quality and magnificence from my Purchase Nothing or neighbourhood teams. They might find yourself in a landfill if I didn’t repurpose them for my backyard.
Impressed, I made a decision to embark on a low-buy/no-buy yr in 2025. I stated goodbye to all my purchasing apps and any remnant of quick purchasing in my life.
Whereas it may be laborious to remove these techniques completely and purchase all the things used, I made an effort to seek out what I wanted in sharing teams first, then from native companies.
It was via these connections of chatting and assembly with folks to gather their issues that I spotted how a lot now we have misplaced contact with actual folks via one-click shopping for and same-day transport. Comfort = disconnection.
And that’s how The Wild & Free Backyard got here collectively as a e book about price financial savings, waste discount, and discovering your folks.
The Wild & Free Backyard is a DIY and design e book, however additionally it is the handbook of how I constructed my very own backyard and got here right into a group of connections that reworked my life. I constructed the gardens in my new residence via group sharing and recycled supplies, and made lifelong mates alongside the way in which. The backyard got here collectively completely via connecting.
So now, as we close to the launch of the e book, the concept of a launch get together appears like a real-life expression of the e book’s values. It requires a gathering of people who find themselves additionally keen on constructing group.
The Ebook Launch Particulars
The e book launch will probably be going down at MONOVA, the Museum of North Vancouver, on February 25, from 7:00 to eight:30 PM.
LoriAnn Hen, creator, herbalist, and pricey pal of mine, will probably be becoming a member of me to share tales, gardens, and the folks behind them.
Vancouver’s North Shore Tourism Affiliation has been an enormous champion of mine via the e book’s creation, and so they’ve helped me safe this lovely location for the e book launch. Your ticket to the occasion contains after-hours museum entry!
Tickets to the occasion are $33, which contains one signed copy of The Wild & Free Backyard (valued at $32.99) PLUS occasion admission for two company and a particular reward from West Coast Seeds.
Purchase Tickets
The “Wild” and “Free” Areas
On the occasion, you’ll additionally discover two areas impressed by the e book with additional goodies. Within the “Wild” space, you’ll discover a self-guided artistic area. I’ll be filling it with pure and located supplies like pressed flowers, leaves, twine, paper, and extra so that you can create your individual botanical paintings to take residence.
The Wild space is sponsored by Vancouver’s North Shore Tourism Affiliation, and there will probably be loads of wild supplies from across the North Shore so that you can craft with.
The “Free” space will probably be a free market stuffed with community-supported, garden-themed objects, and has kindly been sponsored by West Coast Seeds. Friends are inspired to convey new or like-new garden-themed objects for the free area, however it’s utterly optionally available.
You may depart or take as a lot as you’d like, and there’s no obligation to convey something in any respect. There are not any guidelines about giving or taking. Giving is for anybody who finds themself with an abundance that they not want. Some folks want greater than others, and I need the Free space to be a spot of generosity.
I’ll be bringing a few of my handmade soaps and gardening instruments along with gardening books donated by Quarto, seeds from West Coast Seeds, and extra goodies. So convey some jam out of your backyard! Or that additional trowel you by no means use. Or a division out of your backyard. It’s all about sharing.
If you happen to’re native or occur to be on the town on February 25th, get your tickets earlier than they promote out. House is restricted for the occasion, and I’d love so that you can be part of me in celebrating the launch of The Wild & Free Backyard. That is an open invitation to assemble, join, and spend a night being somewhat wild and somewhat free, collectively.