A Woman’s Garden

A WOMAN’S GARDEN: ‘A LIVING EXPRESSION OF CREATIVITY’

words: Suzy Holland images: Tanya Anderson Local organic gardener, soap maker, bee keeper and beauty producer Tanya Anderson has published her first book ‘A Woman’s Garden’ but she’s the first to say that it’s not just a gardening manual – although there’s lots of helpful advice and guidance, it’s really an introduction to the possibilities of plants. Tanya is perhaps best known for her website and YouTube channel Lovely Greens and now with this book she’s sharing inspiring ways to use the power of plants for home and health. Not just to admire or eat, but also to use in skin care, in crafts, for medicinal purposes or even for all those reasons. there, healed my soul,” says Tanya, “and I knew I was not alone. Women in particular were realising that our gardens, however big or small, are a living expression of creativity, filled with plants that can improve our lives.”

So Tanya sat down, and with the help of friends and family far and wide, wrote ‘A Woman’s Garden’. With chapters ranging from ‘the kitchen garden’ to ‘herbal medicine’, ‘edible flowers’, and ‘the crafty garden’ it features not just Tanya’s own garden and her hints and advice but seven other female gardeners from around the world who have shared their experiences, their expertise and their ideas: even as a non-gardener, I’ve been inspired.

“Whether you’re growing herbs on a windowsill or vegetables in an allotment, in my experience the big issues we are dealing with from climate change to this global pandemic have seen people looking at their garden space in a new way,” says Tanya. “It’s not about competitive

gardening – the biggest neap or the tallest sunflower - but using plants in a natural way to nurture your own well-being, and then, if you choose, sharing your plants and gardens physically, creatively or emotionally with friends and family. Although I had many years of no garden, no plants, no pots, and lots of stress to deal with, I always knew there was a continuity, a sisterhood, in nurturing plants.”

Tanya traces her own interest in plants back to childhood and working with her grandmother in her garden, and now sees this same nurturing continuing in her friendships in both real life and on social media, “and to be honest,” she laughs, “without those friends to call on even during lockdown, this book would never have been finished!” Tanya moved to the Island just over ten years ago on a whim. “I was looking for a way out of my stress-filled life in London,” she says, “so when I saw a tourist ad for the Isle of Man I was convinced, and I’ve never looked back!” During her time on the Island she has moved several times – each time for a bigger plot of land to garden – and become secretary of the Laxey & Lonan Allotment Association. She also organises the annual ‘Seed and Plant Swap’ just before the growing season starts (this year’s is on Saturday 20 March at Laxey Sailing Club), monthly soap making workshops and is planning more holiday- and garden-themed willow workshops – with willow-maestro John ‘Dog’ Callister – over the winter. It’s safe to say – in the words of estate agents the world over – that in the Isle of Man Tanya Anderson really has found her ‘forever home’.

But back to the book: although it’s called ‘A Woman’s Garden’, I’d argue that it really isn’t just for women. It’s for anyone who cares about making a difference, however small, to the world, and making a difference in their own lives. Tanya doesn’t shy away from the big stuff – after all, she did write this during the first months of Covid and what she describes as ‘the great pause’ - and also considers the effects of intensive farming, commercial production of plants and, one of her first gardening loves, the importance of bees. But as well as describing her own allotment and garden, she has also covered growing vegetables in pots, decorating cocktails with edible flowers, and making herb-embedded pasta (using flour from Laxey Flour Mills of course), and her own speciality, using plants for skincare with recipes for soaps, face creams, balms and ‘herbal bath fizzes’, for that long soak in the bath to ease sore gardening muscles.

And even armchair gardeners like me will appreciate ‘A Woman’s Garden’. The full colour photographs, easy to read and easy to understand instructions about how to grow and how to use the plants she suggests – whatever size your plot or pot – and the friendly, approachable and positive style for which she is known make it very readable and very followable. I’m even tempted to scrape the mud off my own gardening gloves to try some of her suggestions myself, but the last word should go to Tanya:

“A woman’s garden is a living expression of creativity filled with plants that can improve our lives … it’s a place to nurture, grow and make.”

‘A Woman’s Garden’ is published by Cool Springs Press, ISBN 9780760368404, out on 23 March but available to preorder now, and soon to be found at the Manx Museum and Bridge Bookshops.