In The Flower Hunter, Lucy Hunter takes us on an inspirational journey through a year in her garden and artist’s studio set among the mountains of North Wales. Lucy's evocative, gently humorous words accompany her glorious photographs and exquisite floral arrangements, as she encourages the reader to marvel at the intricate cycles of the natural world, develop their own innate creativity, and to look for beauty in the everyday. Her garden provides the raw materials and inspires Lucy's floral artistry—breathtaking naturalistic arrangements with all the painterly beauty and flourish of a Dutch still life. Simple projects accompany Lucy’s text, from drying garden flowers for an autumnal wreath to making your own journals and natural dyes to assembling lavish arrangements that showcase the voluptuous beauty of garden roses. Lucy believes that we all have a creative voice buried deep within. The Flower Hunter will encourage you to find your own creativity and help it to blossom.

Carl Linnaeus - Joseph Banks - Francis Masson - Carl Peter Thunberg - David Douglas - William Lobb - Thomas Lobb - Robert Fortune - Marianne North - Richard Spruce - Joseph Dalton Hooker.

William Bartram has rightly been hailed as an astute, perceptive chronicler of Native American societies. The Flower Hunter and the People introduces Bartram's writings on Southeastern Native Americans and allows Bartram and his indigenous consultants to tell their stories in their own words.

Painter, naturalist, writer and explorer, for almost 50 years she travelled to remote parts of Australia, India, Europe, America and New Guinea in pursuit of exotic flowers and wildlife to paint. Over 3000 works testify to her prodigious output. This publication will help establish her rightful place in Australian art.

Dubbed the Bulb Hunter in a 2006 New York Times feature story, Chris Wiesinger took his passion for bulbs to vacant lots, abandoned houses, cemeteries, and construction sites throughout the South in search of botanical survivors whose descendants had never seen the inside of a big-box chain store. The vintage specimens Wiesinger sought came from hardy, historic stock, adapted to human neglect and hot climates, reappearing faithfully over decades without care or cultivation. Traveling back roads, speaking to strangers, looking for the telltale color of a remnant iris or lily, Wiesinger started digging, then began trying to grow and share the bulbs he collected. From its humble beginnings on an East Texas sweet potato farm, his Southern Bulb Company has now grown into a full-fledged business known throughout the world, propagating and selling the rare, tough, heritage plants Wiesinger still seeks out and champions. Nicknamed “Flower” by his fellow cadets at Texas A&M University, Wiesinger relates his adventures in bulb hunting, telling stories of the bulbs he has discovered and weaving in his own life story as a student, plantsman, and small business owner. He then teams with veteran horticulturist William C. Welch to provide advice on how to grow and appreciate the bulbs that have been rescued and reintroduced. This “primer” gives gardeners information on what bulbs to grow where, when to plant them and when they bloom, and how to incorporate them with other plants in the landscape. Finally, Welch describes how bulbs have enhanced his personal gardens and brought him and Wiesinger together in the common cause of heirloom gardening. Entertaining, informative, and loaded with beautiful photographs, The Bulb Hunter is sure to be a favorite of gardeners and plant lovers everywhere.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession. Determined to clone an endangered flower—the rare ghost orchid Polyrrhiza lindenii—a deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man named John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, through Florida’s swamps and beyond, along with the Seminoles who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean—and the reader—will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion. In this new edition, coming fifteen years after its initial publication and twenty years after she first met the “orchid thief,” Orlean revisits this unforgettable world, and the route by which it was brought to the screen in the film Adaptation, in a new retrospective essay. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. Praise for The Orchid Thief “Stylishly written, whimsical yet sophisticated, quirkily detailed and full of empathy . . . The Orchid Thief shows [Orlean’s] gifts in full bloom.”—The New York Times Book Review “Fascinating . . . an engrossing journey [full] of theft, hatred, greed, jealousy, madness, and backstabbing.”—Los Angeles Times “Orlean’s snapshot-vivid, pitch-perfect prose . . . is fast becoming one of our national treasures.”—The Washington Post Book World “Orlean’s gifts [are] her ear for the self-skewing dialogue, her eye for the incongruous, convincing detail, and her Didion-like deftness in description.”—Boston Sunday Globe “A swashbuckling piece of reporting that celebrates some virtues that made America great.”—The Wall Street Journal

Little botanist / first naturalist Of John Bartram's nine children, it is William who best loves nature and wants to follow in his father's footsteps. William dreams of accompanying his father as he explores the wilderness of colonial America as botanist to the King of England in search of plant specimens. Using journals, maps, and her own vibrant paintings, Deborah Kogan Ray tells the captivating story of Billy's first trip to the Catskill Mountains and his further adventures as an adult, including a long, perilous journey into the remote wilderness. A bibliography, biographical notes, and list of plant discoveries complete this remarkable book about America's first naturalist. A Junior Library Guild Selection

An in-depth look at politics and love through poetic measure. A journey through a relationship most of us take. Traveling from getting to know someone to intimacy and breaking up. An enlightening empathetic endeavor explaining all aspects of human nature. A thought-provoking brushstroke through our current culture. An uplifting look at rising above tragedy and trauma. The first chapter explores the beliefs of myself and various people. The second, third, fourth and fifth chapters explore the beauty of enchanting love. While the last three chapters are full of heartbreak and how to move on and be stronger. Each chapter is mesmerizing and full of metaphors and moments most of us can associate within our own life. A window into the eyes of a poet in this day and age. Page by page you will be taken by the words and overwhelmed by the verbs. If you read this book and purchase it, I know you will love it in its entirety.

Lucy Hunter invites us to join her on a personal journey to the places and spaces that she loves best, and which inspire her work as a creative floral artist and garden designer. She explores the drama of the mountains, the ever-changing light of the coast and the enduring romance of the countryside, and even finds natural beauty in the most urban of places before returning home to give free rein to the creativity inspired by these different landscapes. In The Flower Hunter: Creating a floral love story inspired by the landscape, Lucy shows how to inspiration from the natural world and scale it down to create floral arrangements, dried and pressed flowers and natural pigments for mark making. More than just a guide to flower arranging, the book encourages us to pause and look, to open our minds and souls to the beauty of nature, allowing it to spark our creativity and encourage a sense of experimentation. Follow in Lucy’s footsteps and fill your world with flowers, craft and beauty.

Ellis Rowan was one of Australia's most accomplished artists and an incredible--if somewhat unexpected--adventurer. During World War I Ellis ventured alone into the tropical jungles of New Guinea in search of all 72 known species of the Bird of Paradise. Not only was she the first white woman to do such a thing, she was also 70 years old. The Flower Hunter is the incredible story of a woman who went to extraordinary lengths to paint her beloved subject matter, journeying to some of the most wild and inhospitable areas of Australia and beyond. On her death in 1922 there was hardly a household in Australia that didn't know her name. Sadly today she is all but forgotten, yet her work lives on in the 970 paintings carefully preserved in the National Library of Australia and in this, the definitive story of Ellis Rowan's remarkable life.