Orion Spring buys 'game-changer' gardening book in three-way auction

Orion Spring is publishing a guide for novice gardeners by self-taught gardener Hollie Newton, following a three-way auction.

Amanda Harris, publisher at Orion Spring, bought world rights to How to Grow: A Guide For Gardeners Who Can't Garden Yet from Sophie Lambert at Conville & Walsh. The book will be published by Orion Spring on 9th March 2017, priced £20.

In How To Grow, Newton, who is also a creative director for an entertainment marketing/communications agency, took to gardening to escape work pressures, will share what she's learnt over the past few years focusing on small, urban spaces and on growing fruit, herbs and vegetables.

The book follows her blog, "How The Fudge Do You Garden", which she started on buying a "forlorn wasteland of a back garden", after becoming frustrated with having to make do growing fruit and vegetables on her tiny rented balcony. The blog, which shared her mistakes and triumphs as she went about transforming it into an "Eden-like sanctuary" proved "unexpectedly popular", according to Orion Spring, who snapped up the book. 

Orion Spring hopes the "game-changer" book will not only "inspire and inform" but "completely reinvent the gardening category", relying on a "witty and irreverent" approach, and using contemporary, vibrant design and typography, and photography.

Harris said: “Gardening! So many of us want to give it a go but just don't have the confidence to start. Often, gardening books can feel intimidating, irrelevant or just plain staid. They don't understand how a new generation of gardeners wants to garden: with colour, with vibrancy and with veg. That’s where Hollie Newton and her wonderful book How To Grow steps in. It will inspire and inform, it will pop from the bookshelves and screens as something very different indeed, and it won't be green. It's a game-changer and I can't wait to publish it. This is the beginning of a very exciting publishing career for Hollie, already one of the most successful creatives in the UK. I'm so proud to have her join the Orion Spring list.”

Newton added: “I couldn't be more proud to be joining Amanda and her formidable team at Orion Spring. A fresh new imprint for an entirely new approach to the gardening book. It's about time someone knocked the dust off the gardening industry. We aim to do just that.”