Liz Primeau has been gardening since she was a suburban mother of four small children in her 20s, when she would escape to the petunia patch for a few minutes of horticultural therapy. Her pursuit of the perfect garden continued as a hobby after she began her 30-year career as an editor and writer for many Canadian magazines, including Toronto Life and Chatelaine.

Hobby and work merged in 1990 when she became the first editor of a new magazine, Canadian Gardening. In the late ’90s she was also host of Canadian Gardening Television, which aired on the Canadian HGTV network.

Since she resigned from the magazine in late 1998, Liz has written many magazine and newspaper articles on gardening, travel and the environment, and she often speaks at garden shows and seminars. She’s edited seven books for Canadian Gardening magazine, among them The Cook’s Garden, City Gardens, and Favourite Plants, all published by McArthur and Company in Toronto. Liz’s own book, Front Yard Gardens: Growing More Than Grass, published by Firefly Books in Toronto, has been a bestseller since it was published in March, 2003.

Personal notes: Liz lives with her husband in a small suburban home in Mississauga, Ontario, adjacent to Toronto. Her garden is actually bigger than her house. The children are now adults, and two of them are gardeners--one, she admits, is a better grower of plants than she is. So far, her three grandchildren are too busy playing hockey, soccer and taking dance lessons to bother with gardens, although they love to pick her flowers.

Forthcoming:

The Way of a Gardener
Greystone Books