About Marion
It started with the smell of green
When I was 25, I was working aboard a research ship in the South Pacific. After months at sea in the sweltering heat and salt-sticky air, I realized something strange: my sense of smell had petered out...
...When we finally changed course and headed toward home, I spent hours on deck, scanning the horizon for land.
But I smelled it long before I saw it.
Fir trees, beach grass, and freshly mowed lawns. As the ship drew closer, I could smell the sweet, electric smell of green chlorophyll, and suddenly, I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.
In the weeks and years that followed, I poured my energy into growing green things.
Trouble was, I had no idea what I was doing
Thankfully, plants know what to do. And they don't care if you're having a bad hair day.
More than 40 years later, I'm still learning from gardens.
Along the way, I've become an author, award-winning photographer, garden columnist, educator, and speaker. I'm the co-author of the New York Times bestseller Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul, and for more than 30 years I've written a weekly garden column. My writing and photography have taken me from gardens and kitchens to conferences, workshops, magazines, television, and places I
never imagined when I planted my first seeds.
Today I live and garden on Kodiak Island, Alaska, where growing food can be an adventure all its own.
Through my writing, teaching, and The UpBeet Gardener, I help people grow more than vegetables. Gardens can teach us resilience, gratitude, patience, kindness, curiosity—and joy.
I'm still learning those lessons myself.
A Few Highlights
Co-author, Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul, a New York Times bestseller
Author, Cultivating Joy Through Gardening: 365 Daily Meditations
Garden columnist for more than 30 years
Award-winning photographer
Garden educator and speaker
Creator of The UpBeet Gardener
More than 40 years of hands-
on gardening experience
Based on Kodiak Island,
Alaska