Just a few weeks after losing her mother, Lulah was served an eviction notice on the rented house that had been home for many years.  The initial despair caused her to explore the ways in which tuning into the unceasing rhythms of nature can help us live with uncertainty and temporariness as well as becoming more connected to the places we live.

Lulah Ellender will be discussing how she found Home in a Garden.

In partnership with Essex Gardens Trust and Beth Chatto Education Trust who will be jointly launching a new writing competition, The EGT Beth Chatto Writers Prize 2022, at Essex Book Festival, Hylands House on 19th June.

Venue: Hylands House, London Road, Writtle, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 8WQ

Tickets: £10 / £8

Date and time: Sunday 19th June, 12.30pm

Box Office: Book online or via Mercury Theatre 01206 573948 (10am – 8pm Tuesday to Saturday)

Free Parking: Car parking is included in the ticket price. Please register your car on arrival at Hylands House. Please note Hylands Estate are not able to refund car parking charges if you have already paid.

Grounding: Finding Home in a Garden by Lulah Ellender

Just a few weeks after losing her mother, Lulah is served an eviction notice on the rented house that has been home for many years. Despairing about what this means for her family, her immediate response is to freeze, to neglect the plants she has spent years cultivating. But before long she finds herself back in the garden, tidying, planning, and planting – putting down roots even though she may not be there to see the shoots emerge.

Written across the growing season, and drawing on visits to inspiring gardens nearby – Charleston, Great Dixter and Sissinghurst, among others – Lulah explores how these eminent gardeners used these spaces as sources of artistic inspiration, sexual freedom, solace and security, creativity and rootedness. Lulah considers the ways in which tuning into the unceasing rhythms of nature can help us live with uncertainty and temporariness as well as becoming more connected to the places we live. We can use plants to reach across time and space, inherit them from our parents and give them to friends and children; they create memories of those no longer with us, and ultimately connect us to our time-bound place here on Earth.

‘A much-needed book that offers a deep and moving insight on motherhood, letting go, and how our gardens can help us’ ALICE VINCENT

‘A lyrical delve into how gardening literally roots us to places and helps us look towards an uncertain future with hope’ KATHY CLUGSTON

‘An intimate exploration of what it means to be rooted in place and of how a garden can become a safe haven in uncertain times’ SUE STUART-SMITH

‘I much enjoyed this beguiling blend of memoir and cultural history… an absorbing meditation on the reasons that any of us gardens, which had me longing for spring (and ordering a shedload of seeds)’ The Bookseller

About the Author

Lulah Ellender lives in Lewes, East Sussex, with her husband, four children and assorted animals. She has written for the Guardian, the Mail on Sunday’s YOU Magazine, and Sussex Life among others. She was recently Writer in Residence at Charleston’s Festival of the Garden. Her first book Elisabeth’s Lists was published in 2018.

You can find Lulah on Twitter @LulahEllender and Instagram @LulahEllender

Photo of Lulah Ellender © Sarah Weal