In 1997, Daphne Gray-Grant, an executive working for Pacific Press, came to me and asked if I had considered writing a book. I had been writing garden stories for The Vancouver Sun for about six years at that time and had built up quite a solid readership.
At the time I told Daphne that I didn’t know enough to write a gardening book. I said, “I have about 100 plants in my garden and I know them but not much more.” She said, “Then write about them. Write what you know.”
And that is how I got started writing my first book, 100 Best Plants for the Coastal Garden.
If it had been called 101 Best Plants, I might have been left scratching my head.
Daphne did the initial edit and book was published in the spring of 1999 by Whitecap, of North Vancouver.
Throughout the process, I was also encouraged by Robert McCullough, the publisher at Whitecap.
The book was a hit. It was No.1 on the BC Bestsellers list for 13 weeks. I remember precisely because I was shocked when it first made it to No.1 and then, every week after that, I made a habit of never asking the Books Editor at the Sun where my book was on the bestsellers list.
It became a bit of a good-luck habit; I just didn’t want to jinx the book’s run of success.
Every week, I would ask my wife, Loraine, to peek at the list in the paper; and every week she would smile and tell me, “Still No.1”.
After 13 weeks, I had become a little blase. I decided to break my superstitious habit and asked the Books Editor about my book’s ranking. No. 2, he said.
The next year, Whitecap asked me if I wanted to do a similar book for Ontario, so I went to Ontario and checked out the nurseries and garden centres and talked to gardeners and came back and wrote 100 Best Plants for the Ontario Garden.
At the time, Loraine was hobbling around, recovering from a badly broken leg, but she accompanied me on my trip and helped with a lot of the research.
The book was released in 1999 and sold well.
In 2000, I wrote The Blooming Great Gardening Book: A Guide for All Seasons, which contained some of my columns from the paper in a beefed up form.
It was a dense book, but I feel Whitecap made a big mistake in not illustrating it better.
It was too type-heavy and the small colour-photo insert was just not good enough. Nevertheless, it had a great cover and sold well. It also made it to No.1 in the BC Bestsellers list.
In 2005, Whitecap produced a completely revised and updated version of 100 Best Plants for the Coastal Garden with a smart new cover and more lavishly illustrated text and more contemporary layout. It also sold very well making it again to top of the bestseller list.
My last book, Best Plants Picks, was written for The Vancouver Sun in 2008 and was designed as “your month-by-month guide for a West Coast Garden”. It also sold very well and is still available.
Writing books is a very time-consuming project. When I did my first book, I had dozens of reference books scattered everywhere to confirm the spell of species and variety names.
By the time, I wrote my last book, the Internet was available and I was able to check names very quickly by going to the data bank of various botanical gardens and horticultural libraries.
It made the whole process a lot easier and faster.
These books have now become something of a collector’s item.
REVIEW BY GARY VAYNERCHUK, CRUSHING IT!
A resource guide for keeping a garden in bloom year-round. A compilation of expert gardener Steve Whysall`s best columns from the past 15 years, Vancouver Sun`s Best Plant Picks will keep a garden flowering throughout the year. In easy-to-follow sections, Whysall shares his wealth of horticultural knowledge on everything from describing a plant`s distinctive features to creating the best conditions for making a garden thrive. Vancouver Sun`s Plant Picks not only presents gardening options for every season, but also provides a comprehensive guide for gardeners who want to learn more about their plants. The book offers a wealth of practical information alongside fascinating trivia. Vancouver Sun`s Plant Picks is focused on plants suitable for coastal gardens in the Pacific Northwest. It features both common and unique flowering garden plants for every month of the year, including: Winter jasmine (February) Camas lily (April) Silk tree (July) Camellia sasanqua `Midnight Lover` (November) . Written in a lively style by an expert and popular author, Vancouver Sun`s Plant Picks will keep a garden flowering, rain or shine
