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Natasha Morgan

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Rooted in Reflection, Growing with Intention

December 31, 2024

As the calendar turns to a new year, I always find myself reflecting on this shared moment of pause and possibility. For me, the year feels like it truly begins in spring, as the world awakens and the garden offers its first green shoots of promise. However, this time of year—when the days are long and the air is warm—offers an opportunity to reflect on the months that have passed and to consider the path ahead.

This past spring, I made a commitment to share more of myself—my tips, tricks, expertise, and knowledge gained from years of gardening, design, and living closely with the land. It was a promise rooted in the values that have shaped my work: generosity, community, collaboration, and creativity. What I didn’t anticipate was how deeply this act of sharing would give back to me. The connections we’ve built, the stories you’ve shared, and the inspiration we’ve exchanged have filled my year with a richness I couldn’t have envisaged.

Over the past twelve months, there have been countless moments to cherish. From the small victories in the garden to the conversations, workshops, and collaborations that have inspired me, this year has been about growth—not only in the soil but in the connections we’ve cultivated together.

Rather than setting resolutions or chasing rigid goals, I believe in beginning with intention. It’s about aligning our actions with what truly matters, grounding ourselves in purpose, and allowing the unfolding seasons to guide us. Intention gives us space to grow naturally, just as a garden does, adapting to what each day brings.

As we step into 2025, I am staying rooted in these values. I’m excited to continue sharing my journey with you—offering practical knowledge, insights, and inspiration for creating spaces that are both beautiful and productive. Together, we’ll explore what it means to live well, to design with care, and to build connections with nature, the land, and each other.

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As you join me in a collection of snapshots from the past year, I hope you’ll see the stories of shared learning, community, and creativity that have defined this chapter. Whether it’s been through workshops, your visits to Little Cottage on a Hill, or simply a kind word online, I am so grateful for the role you’ve played in this journey.

In the year ahead, I invite you to join me in starting with intention. Let’s nurture what sustains us, embrace the beauty in the unexpected, and continue to create spaces where life flourishes.

Here’s to the seasons yet to come and the small but meaningful steps we take together.

With love,

Natasha xx

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Tags: community, workshops, Skill-Sharing, learning together, creative workshops, vegetable growing, homegrown food
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The Productive Garden Companion is out in the USA. So I thought I’d celebrate by introducing you to one of the book’s North American contributors @christian_douglas_design. Christian Douglas is a British-born Californian landscape architect and garden designer. His practice, Christian Douglas Design, creates ecologically informed, food-productive landscapes. He has spent more than 30 years making gardens across England, Jordan and the United States. His projects have been covered by Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and many many more. And his design philosophy lives in his own beautiful book, The Food Forward Garden (definitely worth a read!) Christian, his studio and his backyard-farming crew at @thebackyardfarmco spent twelve years designing and farming side by side, and what they learned is simple: “When you grow food close to the house, people garden more, they learn quicker, they eat healthier.” Follow that idea through our conversation and you arrive here, at his hope for where garden design goes next: “My hope and dreams is that we actually remove the term edible, and they’re just called landscapes.” This clip is just a tiny snippet of the generous conversation Christian shared with me. The full conversation is available via the book’s QR-linked pages, along with conversations with 24 contributors from all over the world. The Productive Garden Companion is out now in Australia, the UK and the USA. Order wherever you are in the world via the link in my bio. If Christian’s words resonate, please share them with a gardening friend on your side of the world. Check out his work and book and let’s keep these conversations and important work going. Thanks so much Christian! It’s such a privilege to have your thoughts and words so generously shared find a way into my book. #Gardening #GardenDesign #KitchenGarden #GrowYourOwn #TheProductiveGardenCompanion @murdochbooks @murdochbooks_uk
I usually dread the big spring chop, but not this year! And well, that's because everything from the garden cutback was going to be transformed into something incredible. But more of that tomorrow…⁠ ⁠ Spring is a little later here in my Daylesford cold temperate garden. Over the years I've come to understand spring not as a date on a calendar but as an unfolding of small events. Each small observation compounds in my mental notebook through my morning garden lap until my brain shouts out to me - 'it's happening! Spring is nearly here!'⁠ ⁠ That moment hit last week. The little glimmer of fresh green shoots about to pop beckoned that it's time to shed the garden's winter layers! This big chop is a task I leave as long as I possibly can. The filigree of winter seed heads and umber grasses provide visual interest and structure across the colder months, but also, most importantly, they provide harbour and sustenance for insects and birds. The lorikeets go mad for the echinacea seedheads, and insects find homes inside hollow stems.⁠ ⁠ I believe a garden should be designed for interest all year round, and so with the 1000 fragrant jonquils and daffodils I planted as an understorey to winter, now pushing through the earth and many already flowering, it's time to let the spring bulbs sing whilst the rest of the garden wakes up.⁠ Here's a little video of the big chop. Now's the time to get inspired to refresh your own garden.⁠ ⁠ And tomorrow I'll show you where every armful of it ended up. It's not what you'd expect.⁠ ⁠ #springgarden #gardenmaintenance #wildlifegarden #TheProductiveGardenComoanion #NatashaMorgan⁠
They used to call Charles Dowding @charles_dowding the lazy gardener. He told me this from his extraordinary experimental no-dog market garden and international flagship, Homeacres in Somerset, UK, me at the kitchen table in Daylesford, Australia, in a conversation I recorded for The Productive Garden Companion. Somewhere along the way hard work became the point of gardening, and Charles has spent 40 years asking whether it has to be. Feed the soil and let the biology do the rest. It’s the same thing I’ve been trying to say about a whole garden: make one that gives more than it takes, do it thoughtfully and then consider if there’s ways you can ‘get out of its way’ to reap the rewards. That’s why the book holds whole conversations. Scan the QR code on the no-dig pages and you’re listening to Charles, unscripted, in real conversation generously and authentically shared. There are QR codes like this all through the book. Two years of work, and these are the part I’m probably proudest of - the part that takes the book beyond its pages and continues to expand with time. Books generally are capsules fixed in time. My hope is that this one shares, gives and evolves, but most importantly that it continues to walk beside you as your own garden journey grows. Charles has walked alongside me in my own growing journey over the years, providing hard won insight and inspiration. His conversation with me is an invitation for him to walk beside you too! I’m so honoured to announce that The Productive Garden Companion is out now in the UK (Murdoch Books) wherever you buy books, or via the link in my bio. Thank you so much Charles for finding your way into its pages. @murdochbooks_uk @murdochbooks #nodig #charlesdowding #theproductivegardencompanion #NatashaMorgan #ukgardening
Tonight I’ll stand in a room full of the people who have contributed to The Productive Garden Companion through its words, a life, and friendships - and hold it up this book amongst you all for the very first time.

I cannot wait  to be amongst
Tonight I’ll stand in a room full of the people who have contributed to The Productive Garden Companion through its words, a life, and friendships - and hold it up this book amongst you all for the very first time. I cannot wait to be amongst a room of the very special people who helped make this book happen. The growers, makers and thinkers whose hands are in every chapter, all in one room on one night. Friends from twenty years back. Family. And you, I hope. I keep trying to think about the words I’ll share. The beautiful faces I’ll see and what my community means to me - the bit where I say thank you out loud and I can’t get through it without emotions flooding in. I’ve just looked over the latest guest list and gosh there’s going to be some extraordinarily important people there tonight. I’d love to welcome you to that room too! Saturday’s Daylesford book launch is now sold out, so if you’ve been waiting for one of these, tonight is the first launch and there’s a handful of tickets left. Then it’s done. $15, welcome drinks and food included. Tickets: tap the link in my bio, choose ‘Natasha’s events, workshops & e-books’, then Melbourne Launch. Melbourne Book Launch Thursday 17 September 2026 5.30–7.30pm Firecracker Events 58A Victoria Rd, Northcote The biggest of big thanks to my dear friend Cassie @firecrackerevent , on this crazy journey with me since my student days in 2002, in more wonderful ways than I can count. Thank you to our incredible supporters @hepburndistillery @victorias.heartland @barry_and_co @thecottageherbalist @billypress_ @acreofroses @amber.gardener @stonewallsmusk @musklanewine @thediggersclub @gardencentresofaustralia @woodendgeneral @avenuebookstore @kateseddon_landscapedesign @mineralspringsco
If I look a bit bleary-eyed in this, it’s because of a book. There hasn’t been a lot of sleep around here lately, and all of it comes back to The Productive Garden Companion. Today is publication day. I keep trying to explain what this book is and I land in the same place every time. Yes, it’s a gardening book. It’s a book about landscape design. And underneath all of that, it’s a book about what it is to live well, and why I keep returning to the garden through every chapter of my life. In many ways it’s the culmination of fifty years of living. It’s the book I couldn’t find. A productive garden, to me, was never only about food. It’s healing. It’s solace. It’s wellbeing, community, biodiversity. It’s a garden that gives more than it takes, and that has been the ethos of this book from the very first page. I hope you find it as generous as you have been with me. Because the support has been unbelievable. Utterly phenomenal. And I truly know this book will find its way into the hands and hearts of people who perhaps didn’t even know they needed it. So this is my invitation. Wherever you are, wherever you grow, whatever your scale or your climate, a balcony with a few pots or a grand estate, this book is there to walk beside you. To inspire you, to empower you, to invite you to start where you are. Grow one thing. Even if that’s all you start with. And maybe let it ripple out. It’s out now. Online, in stores, and hopefully coming to libraries and schools near you. Find it where you find all good books. And I’m doing a massive run to the post office today to send out all of your incredible orders. Thank you. Thank you for being here. None of this happens alone. I have so much more to share. @murdochbooks #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #NatashaMorgan #MurdochBooks #GrowOneThing #GardenDesign
It is blowing a gale up here and I have come out to show you this garden one last time before it all gets cut down tomorrow. The calendar says spring. The garden says give me another few weeks. I go by what I can see, never by the date, and up here it is still wind, still cold, still last autumn lying over everything. It is all bleached and paper dry and moving about in the wind, which is exactly how I want it to look before it goes. I leave it standing all winter for that reason. The birds get the seed, the frost sits on the heads of a morning, and I get to watch the whole thing come apart slowly instead of tidying it away back in March. Tomorrow the lot comes off. We are cutting and bundling every grass and every seed head out of here, because all of it is going to become a botanical installation for the launch at @stonewallsmusk on Saturday the 19th and Sunday the 20th of September. Alissa from @larkspur_flowers__ and are going to create some magic out of it all to fill the gallery! Then when the exhibition comes down it moves on again, to the windows of @woodendgeneral , where I am doing a book signing with @thecottageherbalist and @billypress_ . That one is free but you do need to book so we know numbers. Link on my website. The orange geum stays where it is. So do the box balls, already clipped, holding the bones of the whole thing while everything else disappears. And then there is what is underneath, because under all of this last-of-autumn mess there are thousands and thousands of bulbs already up. That is deliberate. My gardens have to work hard right through the year, so the day I take this layer off, the colour is already there waiting. Structure from the box. Colour from the bulbs. I do think it is worth stopping and looking at a garden before it gets chopped. It is all the same cycle. Nothing is being lost here, it is just going somewhere else for a few weeks. Watch this space. I will take you back out tomorrow with the secateurs going. #gardendesign #gardenlife #australiangarden #LittleCottageOnAHill #TheProductiveGardenCompanion
One week. I can’t get my head around it! I never imagined what book publication day might feel like, and one week out I’m just starting to get a glimpse. Reflective, a little emotional, totally overwhelmed. A whole program of launch events kicks off next week: the Melbourne launch at @firecrackerevent on Thursday 17 September, then the exhibition and book launch at @stonewallsmusk in Musk on Saturday 19 September. But I didn’t start life as a country dweller. I started as a landscape architect with a whole lot of ideas and a whole lot of aspirations. An architecture degree, then landscape architecture, and 15 years working on public realm projects like the Australian Garden at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne. I lectured for 10+ years across RMIT and Melbourne universities. Then I found a country property that was only ever supposed to be a weekender. Meg Travis @girlfridays_notes , captured in my book, said that when she first came to Oak & Monkey Puzzle it was ‘the first day of forever’. It was exactly the same for me. Someone I met out of the blue the other day told me that when they drive from Melbourne to Daylesford, there’s a point on the Ballan-Daylesford Road where they feel something shift. They knew the exact spot and knew nothing about me. That exact spot was Oak & Monkey Puzzle! The threshold of a life where landscape became something I did for me, and then shared outwards. A place that nourished me in ways I could never have imagined. Then came the epiphany about soil, sky, air and water, the one that runs all through the book, and it led me here. Little Cottage on a Hill in Daylesford. Sometimes it’s nice to look back and see how far you’ve come. Here’s a little trip down memory lane. I hope you’ll celebrate with me, not just the fact that the book is so nearly here, but the whole lifetime that got me here. It’s all in the book’s pages. It’s the book I couldn’t find. Part life story, part memoir, so to speak. A lifetime of gardening, a career in design, and the stories of so many contributors from around the world, generously shared. Here’s a snippet of a life that led me here. Book events are on my website
Hi everyone, I’m in my potting shed — greenhouse-y kind of a space — watering seedlings, and all my summer things are starting to germinate. It’s just the nicest time to be in here. I’ve just come back from two beautiful days in Adelaide for the Horticultural Media Association @hmaaustralia awards (Gardenstead @gardenstead was a finalist, so I was there flying the flag). And being back in the shed got me thinking. I’m going to start sharing the nuts and bolts of what I’m doing in my garden, day to day, on my @substack. Unpolished. Unfiltered. Not that I’m ever really filtered anyway. You’ll find this on my Substack account: (@natashamorgangardens) I want this to be a really generous, authentic, raw kind of space where you can actually join me. That’s what my book is all about too — The Productive Garden Companion. It’s a companion because I want it to walk beside you in the truest sense. Something that holds your hand. Something generous and real and warm, my words on the page literally just accompanying you. So here’s the invitation: come and join me on Substack. Share what you’re doing in your garden as I share what I’m doing in mine — I’d love to see it in the comments there. One last thing — all the events for the book are on my website (link in bio), with more being added all the time. I’m so, so grateful to the bookshops, venues and partners supporting me. It’s quite phenomenal, it really is. And to everyone who pre-ordered: thank you. If you haven’t, there’s still time (link in bio) — and bring your pre-ordered book along to one of the events so I can say thank you in person and sign it for you. I hope you’re having a beautiful day. And happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there! Natasha x #GardenWithMe #TheProductiveGardenCompanion #GardeningAustralia #PottingShed #NatashaMorgan
I am great in my own domain. The thought of being with hundreds of people from across Australia, even though united by a common love, still had me more than a little nervous, travelling to Adelaide as Gardenstead was a finalist at the HMAA Laurel Awards. But I can say, without the slightest reservation, is that in little more than 48 hours it become screamingly obvious that the gardening and horticultural industry holds some of the kindest, most generous, warm-hearted, engaging, authentic people you will ever find. From the HMAA awards held at the extraordinary estate and gardens of Carrick Hill. A room full of people I respect so greatly and deeply admire, from all over Australia. To last nights industry preview at provided a wonderful opportunity to thank Costa Georgiadis firsthand for his kindness in the words he shared about my book. I got to meet people I’ve been inspired by across an entire life. Sophie Thomson, for the very first time. Even managed to give Hannah Moloney a good squeeze. Mamma mia, she is a woman who stands tall, and not just in stature. In energy. What a powerhouse. What an absolute inspiration. Angus Stewart, a delight as always. Sharing a room with Graham Ross. Liz Wilson of Gardening Australia magazine, what an extraordinary person she is. Kind and generous, the sort of person who just makes you feel warm being near her. Connie Cao going from strength to strength. Lisa and Fiona of Diggers, laughing to tears! I have come home exhausted, but also with a heart absolutely full. It’s extraordinary to be able to look back at this community I find myself in. What a magnificent weekend with the greatest of thanks to the Horticultural Media Association of Australia. And Adelaide. What a city. So honoured and privileged to be there flying the flag for Gardenstead. A true honour to be a finalist in a room of extraordinary people. I can’t wait for the next Laurels. Two years away, and so many faces I now know that I just can’t wait to get back there. With the biggest of thanks to every single person tagged here. It was an absolute joy to meet you. X