My bio.

For more than twenty years I worked a niche as a gardening writer, contributing words and images to major national outlets. In 2021, burnt-out after years of drought, bushfires and Covid, I decided it was time for a change. I took a break from garden writing and started what I began to call a “mid-life gap year”, spending nine months building a wooden sailing dinghy in my backyard shed. This project was followed by a Master of Creative Writing, which I completed in mid-2023.

In past lives, I’ve also worked as a market gardener, a builder’s labourer, a nurseryman and a garden designer. I try to bring to my writing a combination of the practical and the philosophical, seeking meaning from subjects that goes deeper than the activity alone.

I live with my wife Kylie and teenage children on Jarowair country in Hampton, Queensland, where I’m gradually renovating an old cottage, growing food and revegetating a remnant patch of bush.

My writing experience.

My first published article was a 2001 travel piece about New England National Park that ran in the Toowoomba Chronicle. It sits somewhere on my bookshelves in a deep pile of newspaper cuttings and magazines, because I've been fortunate to contribute hundreds of articles to a range of national publications. Here are some highlights:

  • Horticultural Editor, ABC Gardening Australia Diary and Calendar 2016 - 2018

  • Regular contributor to ABC Organic Gardener Magazine 2007 - 2021

  • Regular contributor to ABC Organic Gardener website 2011 - 2020

  • Regular contributor to ABC Organic Gardener Essential Guides 2011 - 2018

  • Regular contributor to ABC Western Queensland 2016 - 2020

  • Contributor to ABC Organic Gardener books Happy Hens (2015) and Backyard Bounty (2017)

  • Regular contributor to Gardening Australia magazine 2015 - 2020

  • Regular contributor to Garden Clinic Journal 2014 - 2016

  • Weekend gardens columnist for Toowoomba Chronicle 2006 - 2013

  • Gardens columnist for Highlife Downs Living Magazine 2006 - 2013

  • Regular contributor to Burke's Backyard Magazine 2001 - 2003

I've also written for Country Style, Indulge, Green Lifestyle, Go Camping Australia, APN Newspapers and a range of smaller publications.

If you have a project that needs an experienced writer, I'd love to chat. I'm good at what I do and I pride myself in always meeting my deadlines.