The Book

Inspired by leafing through ‘From the Land Comes the Cloth’ by Ian Lawson during a visit to the Isle of Harris distillery in 2015, I decided to create a coffee table book rather than the series of leaflets I had originally envisaged. Once I had made that leap, it was but a hop, skip and jump  to decide to create a beautiful, boxed coffee table book in three volumes:

Volume 1 – ‘Orchards of the World’

Volume 2 – ‘Orchards of Europe’

Volume 3 – ‘Extreme Orchards of the World’

European orchards are so rich in history and biodiversity that I felt they deserved their own volume. Extreme Orchards of the World will tell the story of those orchards growing at the edges of possibility, both climatically and geologically. This will include remote islands, the Himalayas and Alaska.

Remember, an orchard only needs to contain five fruit and/or nut trees to qualify as an orchard, so the possibilities are endless.

The chapter titles for each volume will follow the three-dimensional structure of the ‘orchardscape’, starting with the soil and ending with us – the guardians.

Chapter 1: Soil

Chapter 2: Tree

Chapter 3: Blossom

Chapter 4: Pollination

Chapter 5: Fruit

Chapter 6: Harvest

Chapter 7: Guardians

Over the next 10-12 years, these chapter headings will be populated with snippets from the storyboard as the research and writing evolve.