Outside In by Sean A. Pritchard

Outside In by Sean A. Pritchard

This book came out in 2024, and the subtitle is A Year of Growing and Displaying.

In this enchanting debut, garden designer Sean A. Pritchard invites us into his 300-year-old farm laborer's cottage in Somerset, where he masterfully blurs the lines between garden and home. The Wall Street Journal aptly describes him as a "flower-whisperer," and his approach to bringing the garden indoors throughout the year is both artistic and accessible.

Let me share a particularly evocative passage that captures the essence of Sean's philosophy:

As I write this, there are five very leggy pelargoniums in worn terracotta pots sitting on the windowsill next to me. It's the middle of winter, and for the past week or so, the days have been disappointingly grey and dingy - everything trapped in a damp half-light. A clear, frosty morning, when the low sun sends long shadows racing up the surrounding hills, would be a welcome treat any day now.

But, despite my own misgivings, these pelargoniums remain unbothered by the drab weather and are happily shooting toward the ceiling in spindles of leathery green foliage. There are canes now to scaffold the tallest ones. They were sunk into the pots last, and the loftiest stems began to collapse - supporting themselves finally became too demanding. In a few months' time, this windowsill will be transformed.

The pelargoniums will have found a new home outside, and in their place will sit treasured ceramic pots that struggle to contain endless nasturtiums in blazing reds and oranges. There may even be a jug of bearded irises - if they haven't gone over already - and perhaps a tiny cup with one or two of the first sweet peas. Color and perfume will have replaced this monochrome chill: Summer changes everything.

It was spring when I first viewed what would become my home in Somerset, England. I'd spent my twenties living all over London and always within an easy tube ride of Oxford Circus in the center of town. But on the cusp of 30, I found myself on a narrow country lane waiting for an agent. Hedgerows as tall as I'd ever seen towered above me. They guarded endless open country that was dotted here and there with primroses, red valerian, and the remnants of old farm buildings.

Birdsong was everywhere. It bounced frenetically around the lanes tits, and finches busied themselves attending to crowded nests. Iknew] didn't want to leave the city completely, but I was also craving something slower. Somewhere to breathe and a garden to fall in love with. I established a history of the cottage sometime after moving in. It was built in the late 17th century and belonged to a neighboring farm as a very modest laborer's cottage. Two extensions followed: another bedroom was added in the 19th century, and the kitchen was extended in the early 20th century.

As such, the house today is an intimate patchwork of rooms bolted together here and there. Its ceilings are low, and the windows are small. Beams jolt at odd angles, floorboards don't quite align properly, and doorways make a failed attempt at being perfectly rectangular. The cottage, being as old and piecemeal as it is, somehow lends itself to a quiet anarchism from which I derive a lot of pleasure.

I'm not overly fussy about straightening any pictures that find themselves askew on my walls, and I'm not quick to correct a lampshade that's fallen out of position; in fact, I enjoy seeing these inanimate objects behaving like petulant schoolchildren. To me, it brings the house alive and is, in some way, faithful to the wonderfully imperfect and informal nature of the house. Things land where they land, and there's a tremendous sense of freedom in that.

The main garden is on a slope to the front of the cottage. It sits in a triangle created by two merging lanes that run on either side of it. An old stone wall forms the boundary for most of the way, but as the garden starts to end, it's then replaced by a hedgerow. It was pleasant enough when I arrived - mostly lawn with the odd shrub here and there, but from the very beginning, I knew that more space was desperately needed for planting.

Another compelling excerpt reveals the heart of his gardening journey:

I had a dream of creating a jumbled cottage garden, a space that seemed impossibly full and where plants jostled with one another - just like the ones I'd read about in Gertrude JekylI's books. And so, the lawn had to go.

In its place, I created large beds that would soon become riots of color and display all my favorite flowers in endless quantities. Lupins crash against alliums. Foxgloves and hollyhocks rise above hardy geraniums, nepeta, and penstemon. Regal lilies and roses provide the perfume. Later come salvias and dahlias that fire the garden into the depths of autumn. Hard landscaping was kept to an absolute minimum, and it was reserved only for a path and a small seating area - to give every square inch over to plants. The rooms of the cottage are a kind of stage.

A platform for evolving melodramatic performances brought in from the garden. One day, it's armfuls of daffodils parading on tabletops; the next, it's tulips. There's never a script or even a plan; the plants and flowers improvise their show as they go along. It's not just about the immediate ornamental appeal that they bring to a room; for me, it is somehow more than that-something more enduring and total.

Plants and flowers have become an intrinsic part of interior decoration, and without them, nothing would be the same. Displays made up of mountains of flowers tumbling out of vessels have a way of elevating the cottage; they bring a certain intensity of life and spirit that cannot be replaced with anything else. And from a more personal perspective, these displays bring me a deep sense of grounding. They're reassuring connections to moments that remain constant year after year.

My living space continues into the garden. Not in the literal sense (I don't have an old Cecil Beaton-style conservatory overflowing with camellias and pelargoniums - although [I wish I did), but in the figurative sense. I want to feel an easy and natural transition between the indoors and the outdoors, as though one were really part of the other. In fact, I suppose I'm on an eternal mission to dismantle any notion of having left the magic of the garden behind when you walk through the door and into the cottage.

Ultimately, that's what this book is all about the ways in which life can be lived at all times and as closely as possible to the things that we grow. A love letter to the garden and the plants and flowers it brings to the house. All gardens, large or small, have the unique ability to take us out of the everyday and present something of the other in our daily lives - foreign realms that work according to their own rules and timetable. Bringing this botanic world inside is, for me, endlessly exciting; it's the slight sprinkle of anarchy and disorder on a life that is otherwise driven by expectations, deadlines, and never-ending administration.

In many ways, I'm always looking to capture something that lives in the vivid technicolor of my imagination. A world that has somehow now largely been lost: the gardens in old black-and-white photographs that the life's work of some enthusiastic plantsperson or cottager. Where annuals were prized and revered and where large areas of paving were unthinkable. Places that slotted perfectly into the surrounding landscape said something about those who created them. I'm forever fascinated by the history of cottage gardens and the stories of their owners.

My little library is filled with old books that trace these botanical histories, and over the years, they have become a comforting escape for me to dip into every now and then. The knowledge and observations that sit within those pages have taught me so much and shaped how I think about the garden and its plants and flowers today. I suppose, in many ways, I owe everything to them: those garden writers, some largely now forgotten, who, through nothing more than enthusiasm and a full life in close proximity1 plants, pioneered new ways of seeing the world around us.

There's a single thread that binds all the chapters that follow together: celebration. Everything I display, both inside and out, comes from a need to celebrate the majesty of color, scent, shape, and texture found within plants and flowers. My life is improved and enhanced immeasurably by them, and, to me, it's unthinkable that a year might go by without filling the insides of the cottage with endless displays of everything the garden has to offer.

I indulge the images and ideas that race through my mind - everything a complicated, and sometimes chaotic, reflection of my imagination - and I suppose my hope is that somewhere along the way, this book might inspire you wherever you live.

The book is divided by seasons, with additional chapters covering vessels, scent, color, texture, and planning for the gardening year. Sean's background in fine art shines through in his approach to displaying flowers and foliage, treating each room as a stage for nature's ever-changing performance.

This book is 224 pages of seasonal inspiration, practical advice, and artistic vision for bringing the garden inside. 

You can get a copy of Outside In by Sean A. Pritchard and support the show using the Amazon link in today's show notes for around $22.