Vancouver friends, I’m celebrating the launch of The Wild & Free Garden, and I want you to join me.
If you have been following me for a while, you might find it strange to learn that I haven’t hosted a launch party for any of my previous books. Lucky number thirteen, I guess!
But really, this one has landed different. The Wild & Free Garden is rooted in community, full of local gardeners, shared knowledge, borrowed tools, and seeds passed from hand to hand. It’s meant to be celebrated through gathering.
The book launch will take place on February 25 at the MONOVA, Museum of North Vancouver. Tickets are $33, which includes one signed copy of The Wild & Free Garden, as well as event admission for two guests and a special goodie from West Coast Seeds.
More details on the launch and the book below!
The Wild & Free Garden is my 13th book. I can hardly believe that I’ve written an average of a book a year since I signed my first book contract. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to write books and have them published; it’s truly a dream job.
With 13 books, creating new articles on Garden Therapy, magazine contributions, and speaking events, it’s no wonder I haven’t made the time to host a book launch before.
I had planned to do a big launch for Garden Alchemy in February 2020. It really felt like one worth celebrating, and I had a whole book tour scheduled for that spring. And well…you know what happened next. Events and travel were cancelled, and we began social distancing at home.
My next two books, Regenerative Garden and The Big Book of Botanical Crafts, were both released in 2022, but by then, book launches were far from my mind. I didn’t really attend events or host parties anymore. It all felt a bit forgotten.
So much has changed since then. In our work and live-from-home spaces, we all became busier than ever and more isolated. There seemed to be a correlation between the convenience and access to purchasing things and the inconvenience and lack of access to social connections.
After moving houses twice, I set upon building a new garden again from scratch, and I decided this garden would be built from used or reclaimed materials. For the cost savings, yes, but also for the reduction of waste.
The sharing economy became my first stop to shop for the materials I needed, and I often found exceptional quality and style from my Buy Nothing or neighbourhood groups. They would end up in a landfill if I didn’t repurpose them for my garden.
Inspired, I decided to embark on a low-buy/no-buy year in 2025. I said goodbye to all my shopping apps and any remnant of fast shopping in my life.
While it can be hard to eliminate these systems entirely and buy everything used, I made an effort to find what I needed in sharing groups first, then from local businesses.
It was through these connections of chatting and meeting with people to collect their things that I realized how much we have lost contact with real people through one-click buying and same-day shipping. Convenience = disconnection.
And that is how The Wild & Free Garden came together as a book about cost savings, waste reduction, and finding your people.
The Wild & Free Garden is a DIY and design book, but it is also the manual of how I built my own garden and came into a community of connections that transformed my life. I built the gardens in my new home through community sharing and recycled materials, and made lifelong friends along the way. The garden came together entirely through connecting.
So now, as we near the launch of the book, the idea of a launch party feels like a real-life expression of the book’s values. It calls for a gathering of people who are also interested in building community.
The Book Launch Details
The book launch will be taking place at MONOVA, the Museum of North Vancouver, on February 25, from 7:00 to 8:30 PM.
LoriAnn Bird, author, herbalist, and dear friend of mine, will be joining me to share stories, gardens, and the people behind them.
Vancouver’s North Shore Tourism Association has been a big champion of mine through the book’s creation, and they’ve helped me secure this beautiful location for the book launch. Your ticket to the event includes after-hours museum access!
Tickets to the event are $33, which includes one signed copy of The Wild & Free Garden (valued at $32.99) PLUS event admission for two guests and a special gift from West Coast Seeds.
The “Wild” and “Free” Spaces
At the event, you’ll also find two spaces inspired by the book with extra goodies. In the “Wild” area, you’ll find a self-guided creative space. I’ll be filling it with natural and found materials like pressed flowers, leaves, twine, paper, and more for you to create your own botanical artwork to take home.
The Wild area is sponsored by Vancouver’s North Shore Tourism Association, and there will be plenty of wild materials from around the North Shore for you to craft with.
The “Free” area will be a free market full of community-supported, garden-themed items, and has kindly been sponsored by West Coast Seeds. Guests are encouraged to bring new or like-new garden-themed items for the free space, but it’s completely optional.
You can leave or take as much as you’d like, and there’s no obligation to bring anything at all. There are no rules about giving or taking. Giving is for anyone who finds themself with an abundance that they no longer need. Some people need more than others, and I want the Free area to be a place of generosity.
I’ll be bringing some of my handmade soaps and gardening tools in addition to gardening books donated by Quarto, seeds from West Coast Seeds, and more goodies. So bring some jam from your garden! Or that extra trowel you never use. Or a division from your garden. It’s all about sharing.
If you’re local or happen to be in town on February 25th, get your tickets before they sell out. Space is limited for the event, and I’d love for you to join me in celebrating the launch of The Wild & Free Garden. This is an open invitation to gather, connect, and spend an evening being a little wild and a little free, together.
A city girl who learned to garden and it changed everything. Author, artist, Master Gardener. Better living through plants.
