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I had a phone call the other day from an old acquaintance. We talked for a while about my work before he said, “You know, George, you’re really putting yourself out there. You are way out beyond the breakers.” The phrase — "beyond the breakers" — is an Australian way of saying someone is existing on the edge of things — that they’re in risky territory, beyond the safety of the beach and the predictability of waves crashing on the shore. 

"It’s lonely out there," he told me, offering his support. I was grateful and surprised. I’d never really considered what I do, what I’m trying to do, as anything other than what I should, what I can. But I stopped for a while, and thought a little more. Of course, it’s madness, this mission of mine to change the world through gardening. Of course, it’s seen as curious that I write of gardening as a counterforce to disconnect, a salve to the illusion of human separateness and control, and a path toward what it means to live a truly good life. Of course, it’s too naive to consider gardening as a tool to combat the increasingly obvious and dangerous effects of climate change. 

I am used to being smiled upon and gently dismissed. Gardening is not valued, here and now. It’s a set of weekend tasks involving fighting with a lawn mower and terrorizing plants. It’s something people do when they retire. It’s practical not philosophical, physical not metaphysical. The minute the word is mentioned in semi-intellectual circles, eyes glaze over. Gardening is not something smart people discuss seriously. 
I’m rarely the recipient of negativity, of course. Everyone smiles when I mention I write about gardens, that I am a gardener. “How lovely,” they say, seeing me as a simple and wholesome woman, secateurs fused to my right hand and fingernails permanently encrusted with soil. “Salt of the earth!” they suggest enthusiastically. I smile outwardly, and inwardly too, telling myself they have no idea just how gritty this woman really is. 

In 2013, I launched an online magazine called The Planthunter. I purposefully didn’t include the word garden in the title or the messaging. I wanted to be taken seriously and thought, rightly or wrongly, that if I used it people would judge the publication before they’d seen what it was actually about. It wasn’t about pruning roses or growing tomatoes. Both are excellent subjects, but I was, and still am, more interested in writing about the why than the how. And so, I put the word "garden" in a very small box on a dark shelf in the corner of the tool shed. It was a dirty word, in more ways than one. 


My mission for The Planthunter was, and still is, to seduce people into falling in love with the world around them, through falling in love with plants. It is a place of storytelling, a place of irreverence, occasional intelligence, curiosity, and connection. It draws equally from culture and horticulture, art and science, beauty and botany. It’s a garden, and actually it’s about nothing other than gardening, though it’s taken me a while to see this. 

I can’t pinpoint when it was I realized it was time to reclaim the word "garden." I can’t say when I decided to own it, to give it air and attention, to reimagine it. I do know, though, that my commitment to it grows with every news report of impending climate catastrophe, every new plant placed on an ever-expanding endangered species list, every time a politician justifies a project with potentially disastrous environmental outcomes as “good for the economy.” If our politicians spent more time with their hands in the soil, they might realize that an environmental disaster is a human disaster — they’re one and the same. Any one of us simple “salt-of-the-earth” types could tell our supposedly sophisticated leaders this. 

I am a gardener. I can’t think of a more important responsibility. Gardening is not just a set of tasks. It’s not restricted to backyards, courtyards, balconies. It can, and should, happen anywhere, everywhere. Gardening is simply a framework for engagement with our world, grounded in care and action. To garden is to care deeply, inclusively, and audaciously for the world outside our homes and our heads. It’s a way of being that is intimately interwoven with the real truths of existence — not the things we’re told to value (money, status, ownership), but the things that actually matter (sustenance, perspective, beauty, connection, growth).

To be a gardener is to give a fuck. To be a gardener is to be invested in a place — to know it, to protect it, and to be present. How can we protect and heal ourselves and our planet if we’re not willing to step into, and value, the role of the gardener? Who will care? It’s a simple question, perhaps too simple to be taken seriously by those who consider themselves so. But at the same time, it’s too important to ignore. 

I wade out into the ocean. The waves throw themselves at my ankles, frothing and splattering. After years of telling different publishers that I don’t want to make a garden book, I make a gardening book. It’s called The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants. It’s a book I needed to make. To shift the conversation about what it means to garden; to switch the dialogue from control to care, from disconnection to connection. To point toward hope. The story of each person within it illustrates the power and importance of gardening, individually and culturally. The book is a collection of seeds I hope will grow into a global forest of gardeners who are willing to stand tall — with the trees, the rivers, the snails, and shrubs — and say, “We care. We are acting.”

I head further away from shore. The water is up to my hips, my waist, my shoulders. I dip my head under the waves and swim out toward the endlessness of the horizon. I float on my back, rising and falling with each gentle pull of the moon on the water. 

I float. I write. I garden. I care. I never thought I’d end up out this far, beyond the breakers, but I don’t know there’s anywhere else I can be. I’ve been told it’s lonely out here, but I’m not alone.  Georgina Reid is a highly respected Australian garden writer and commentator. With a background in landscape design, horticulture, and journalism, she’s the editor and creative director of The Planthunter online magazine. Revered for its insightful, engaging, and inspiring content, The Planthunter has grown a broad international audience since launching in 2013. Georgina also contributes to a range of design publications and lectures regularly on the benefits, beauty, and importance of connecting with plants and nature. The Planthunter: Truth, Beauty, Chaos, and Plants is her first book.