Writing a bio is in no doubt one of life’s more vexing exercises. On par with schmaltzy CV writing, or worse still, one’s LinkedIn profile. Ever envious of people with proper job titles; lawyer, plumber, designer, architect, I have become one of those people with the dreaded ‘this & that’ job description. Though, where I once sat at a desk, suited & booted, in the City of London, I wouldn’t trade being mrs vague-job-title for anything. It boils down to this; I love to garden, so know what a garden fork is for. I garden, I write about gardens, my garden, my poorly neglected allotment, the horticultural industry and all manner of garden related thingies..
My university degrees tell me I am an economist of sorts, which over time I have used wisely to flog, market & PR delicious Italian wines, corporate treasury and other similarly exciting financial & remittance payment products to well healed bankers. I therefore know the way around marketing & PR, which I too dab in, if you required said services. Note the push marketing strategy there…
I’m the editor of the brand new The Dirt Horticultural News an industry news platform for the horticultural professional and enthusiast. As a member of the garden press, I also write articles for some of our illustrious national garden rags; Gardens Illustrated, English Garden Magazine, Inside Horticulture, Garden Media Guild magazine, and the splendid intoGardens (though sadly this genius platform is no more).
To add to mix, I’m part of StreamHM the talented web design & build company run by my completely wonderful husband, Luke. The genius behind the design of this blog. He has built lovely websites for charming punters such as James Alexander Sinclair, Tiffany Daneff, George Irvine, and Lucy Watson. I therefore know my way around all things digital, but especially so in terms of how to utilise these platforms properly with the aim of enhancing sales through the generation of quality coverage and profile.
Oh and if you fancied some of my gardening, and haven’t nodded off by now, I have been and can be on hand to help guide you to plant delicious borders…
You can find me (too often) on the various social media channels where I chart some of my work, gardening triumphs or the antics of our new garden-destroying, nutter labrador puppies. Instagram definitely the favourite there, so that’s your best bet if you’d like to see the latest snippets of my garden. The latter has also exciting appeared in the glossies; Country Life, English Garden and Gardens Illustrated.
We open our garden for the National Garden Scheme, a wonderful charity organisation. If you wish to splash your cash, I highly recommend you point your bank manager to the NGS, as their work supports dozens of wonderful charities, who continue to need help.
If useful, I can converse with you all in Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian and German. Locals too, which is a bonus. I have enough RHS horticultural diplomas (L2 & L3) to know how to propagate, plant, prune my way through anything green. Finally not a requirement but an added perk, I am 6ft3, so view things from an elevated perspective and favourably don’t need ladders to view show gardens at fancy RHS & other horticultural spectacles.
All in all, quite useful. Just don’t ask me what I do….