I’m a garden designer, writer, occasional garden tour leader and blogger at The Gardenist. I started my adult life as a botanist, then trained as a gardener. Along the way I started writing for The Age in Melbourne, Australia. Amongst a range of undeserved privileges, perhaps the greatest was to hang out with Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter for the summer in 1991. I can make myself sick with longing, just thinking about that incredibly rich and formative time. Since then, I’ve spent most of my time designing gardens, or writing about them for The Age, or Gardening Australia, or occasionally for Gardens Illustrated. My first book, Michael McCoy’s Garden was published in 2000, and the second, The Gardenist, hit the shelves in late August 2012. I also lead a few overseas tours of gardens a year for Ross Garden Tours, which is very cool. Being a dad to three teenagers, there wouldn’t be much opportunity for OS travel otherwise.