You'll Love This Beautiful New Garden Design Book from Leslie Bennett & Julie Chai

In the world of food gardens, no one compares to Leslie Bennett. From the day I began my kitchen garden company back in 2015, I’ve looked to Leslie as a mentor and example of excellence. Her book The Beautiful Edible Garden impacted the way I garden profoundly.

Garden Wonderland, Leslie's new book, lets all of us into the magic that is Leslie Bennett because she’s gracious enough to reveal all her design and production secrets. 

I was lucky enough to get to chat with Leslie about her new book and her "garden maximalist" style. Leslie even shared with us some of the book's gorgeous photos by Rachel Weill and Caitlin Atkinson.

Tell us more about your new book. What’s your goal with writing it and sharing it? 

Garden Wonderland is a reflection of all that I’ve learned from the many edible gardens my team and I have made and cared for over the last 15 years, and I wanted as many people as possible to be able to benefit from all of this information. I’m so thankful to my co-author, Julie Chai (pictured below), for helping me to distill all that I wanted to share in this book.

Because we do regular maintenance for most of the gardens we install, we’ve learned so much about what works and what doesn’t work, especially in terms of designing with edibles in the garden. We have figured out some important steps that we now use as part of our design process for every garden that we make.

While it is our life’s work and we’ve made as much an art of it as we can, a great deal of our process is pretty digestible and can be broken down into teachable steps that even beginner gardeners can use. I wanted to share those steps and our overall garden design approach with readers so that more people can have the information they need to successfully make their own front- and backyards into what I now lovingly refer to as “garden wonderlands.” 

I’ve also found it really inspiring to see my clients and their families, many of whom had never lived in relationship with plants or their land before, start to tap into a deep sense of joy, connection, and belonging as a result of their experience living with their home gardens, just as I did when I started working with the land all those years ago.

We feature 19 gardens in the book—the owners’ needs and aspirations, as well as the gardens themselves, are all unique, but what unites them is the depth of meaning that the owners all derive from these spaces. We wanted to share their personal stories with readers in hopes that they could see themselves in the book and feel inspired to create garden wonderlands of their own.

How did you get into gardening?

It took me a long time to find gardening, so I am really glad I finally found my way! My mom loved gardening and always tried to get me into it when I was younger, with little success. But in my mid-20s, while working my first job as a lawyer at a firm in London, I decided to try getting my hands dirty. Living my city life and doing my corporate desk job, I felt so separate from anything natural or truly alive, so I started to volunteer on the weekends at small farms and homesteads outside of London through a program called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). 

One thing led to another, and I eventually signed up for a two-week permaculture course at a farm much further out in the English countryside. A few days into that course, I realized I’d found what I loved. I was so happy on the farm, connected to nature and growing food. I decided then and there to change direction with my life and work with the land instead of the law. 

I’d always wanted to spend more time in Jamaica, where my father is from, so I took a leave from work and moved to the island for a few months to volunteer on a small organic farm. This was in the deep country, working with traditional Jamaican farmers who were growing organic greens for the island’s hotel industry. The farmers taught me how to use a machete to till, plant, and harvest specialty greens including arugula, basil, and mizuna. I loved it, and when my time in Jamaica was up, I decided to formally apprentice on another organic farm, this time in my home state of California.

I landed at a farm in Nevada City, where I spent a few months learning all about growing organic veggies for CSAs and market, then met a local farmer-gardener who was teaching himself all about edible landscaping. He offered to teach me, too! He was so great and became my mentor. I ended up working with him as an apprentice for almost a year before I launched my own edible landscaping business in Oakland with my then husband, who was a farmer I’d met in Jamaica. From there, I always made a point of not being afraid to hire people who knew more than I did and to be really open about learning along the way.

It’s been fifteen years now, and I’ve learned so much! I’ve finally got a garden of my own, too, so I get to enjoy gardening as a hobby along with my kids. I love it so much!

How did you get to the place you are now with your business and your garden style?

When I first started learning how to grow food on farms, I was so excited about it but also kept ending up in these really utilitarian, food-oriented spaces that left me wondering: How can we make this more beautiful? Because the way things look really affects how I feel, I’ve always appreciated well-designed spaces and became so curious about how I could integrate growing food into home-scale settings that are visually inspiring.

At the time, edible landscaping was not a very well-developed field, so while there were a few folks, like Rosalind Creasy, to look to for guidance, there was a lot that I realized I would just have to figure out on my own! I kept taking classes, like John Jeavons’ classic “Grow More Food” micro-farming program, as well as some introductory plant ID and landscape design classes at my local community college. I also found experienced garden designers who were up for working with me to figure out how to integrate food production into more traditionally designed ornamental garden spaces.

My husband at the time was also a landscaper and gardener and taught me so much about the practicalities of installing gardens, running a landscape business, and the importance of quality garden maintenance. And I was lucky to find and get to work early on with the same amazing people who are a part of my business now: Holly Kuljian, who is an incredibly talented landscape architect; Lonna Lopez, who is an amazing garden designer and cutting flower design expert; Jessica Comerford, who is a gifted vegetable and cutting flower garden designer and gardener; and Jorge Ramirez, who is just the best contractor ever!

The first few years were a whole lot of trial and error—and also very hard work—but with each new garden we designed, built, and took care of, we learned something new and got more skilled at making gardens that really had the potential to transform our clients’ lives for the better. I’m so thankful to clients who were open to experimenting with something new—be it growing dragon fruit or date palms or harvesting saffron from crocus bulbs. I’ve never tired of learning more about growing food in home gardens.

Along the way, though, I also got clear about the fact that creating beauty was as, if not more, important to me as growing food. So while I wanted the landscapes my team and I made to be productive with food and flower harvests throughout the year, we also take so much care to ensure that the gardens will be beautiful—and ideally, truly delightful—in each season, too. That has basically meant including more plants and then more plants, and then a few more—so our style is now lots of plants!

Really, I love to create spaces where our clients are surrounded by a rich variety of beautiful and also often edible plants that contribute so much in the way of seasonal experiences and harvests to their daily life.

If you had to use a few words to describe your garden style, what would you say?

I’m a maximalist, and my personal garden style is lush, layered, and eclectic. I love hardworking, more basic plants, as well as really special, unusual varieties, and I believe there’s a role for both in a good garden. Food and flowers are some of the greatest delights available to us in this life, and a garden is where you can figure out and grow the things that make you happy.

If you had to pick your biggest lesson in the garden, what would it be?

My biggest lesson in the garden is that, if you design your space carefully, you can have it all! I see the garden as this magical space where we get to interact with nature and the world on our own terms and get to explore what really brings us joy, but in a way that’s connected to things outside ourselves. It’s a practice of being in community while also honoring yourself. You don’t need to be limited to what you’ve seen before. Instead, think of the garden as a place to truly express what you love and what matters to you—and then see how those things grow together!

Just because you’re growing food doesn’t mean your garden can’t be beautiful. Just because you love modern design doesn’t mean you can’t include some old-fashioned roses. Just because you want to use native or low-water plants, doesn’t mean you can’t plant other things alongside them.

And what’s really exciting about designing a garden that reflects all that matters to you is that you then get to watch everything weave together and see what happens. This is not like designing a more static space like your living room–your garden is a living, breathing entity that, with your support, will grow alongside you, reflecting and uplifting you, while teaching and reminding you about what really matters for you in your life.

Tell us more about how to get the book and use it in our own gardens

Garden Wonderland is available for pre-order now here and at your local bookstore and online on April 2nd! 

We organized the book into two main parts. The first part outlines how to approach your overall outdoor space and make it really work for you–both in terms of creating areas for you and your family/friends to be, and also for the various food, flowers, and plants you want to grow. I think about garden design as creating different opportunities for experience in your front and backyards, so the book walks you through how to figure out what you want to do and how you want to feel in your garden. Then, it explains the specific steps of how to make that happen. We included helpful lists with our favorite go-to plants for different purposes.

And the second part is essentially a tour through gorgeous gardens that are grouped by different design themes for inspiration. We share the owners’ personal stories, which inform each design, and also give design tips as well as very practical “takeaways”—such as how to figure out outdoor seating areas, how to use color as a design tool, how to plan for successional fruit tree harvests, and more—that readers can apply to their own spaces.

Thank you so much for your support. I really hope you enjoy the book as much as we loved creating it for you!

Go Grab Leslie & Julie's Book Right Now!

Oh my goodness, this book is absolutely packed with tangible instruction that is possible in all our spaces, and every single detail is accompanied by the most fabulous photos and illustrations. 

This book is my new coffee table centerpiece that I’ll refer to again and again in my own design work to attempt to get to Leslie’s level. 

If you have even a slight desire to have a more beautiful and bountiful landscape, this is a must-read that you’ll devour in a weekend and then refer back to season after season. 

And join me for an Instagram Live with Leslie on April 9 at 11 a.m. CST.