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If you’re a fan of books and gardening, you’re in for a treat! This week, Woman’s World has an exclusive preview of horticulturist Stephen Orr’s beautiful new book, The Gardener’s Mindset, out May 5th. In his new guide, Orr—former editor-in-chief of Better Homes & Gardens—shares inspiring musings, practical tips and wise advice on gardening. “I wanted to create a bedside reader based on the garden essay titles I learned so much from as a young gardener,” Orr shared on Instagram. “I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing the essays and taking the photographs.”
In the book, Orr pairs lush photography with a variety of easy-to-do projects, from crafting color schemes to building wildlife habitats. He recalls his early gardening days on a New York City rooftop, rearranging pots of roses, herbs and perennials. Later, in Des Moines, his shady new yard leads him to embrace plants like lungworts and epimediums, while his Cape Cod garden serves as an experimental space shaped by sandy soil and coastal storms.
Throughout each essay, Orr’s signature wit, warmth and knowledge capture the life-changing joy and calm of gardening. Here, an exclusive preview of his essay ‘Rose-Colored Glasses’ just for WW readers!
Excerpt of ‘The Gardener’s Mindset’ by Stephen Orr
I carry with me a mental scrapbook of special plants from my childhood. These sensory recollections can pop up suddenly when I catch the scent of lilac on the breeze or see a flash of peony pink while passing in the car. When such memories surface, I try to pause and reflect on the moment that accompanies them: playing hide-and-seek in the neighbor’s shrubs on a spring day or riding with my parents to church.
I grew up in the small city of Abilene, Texas. Our street wasn’t busy with cars, and we knew the names of every homeowner on the block. The summers were filled with kids roaming here and there without a care, through front yards, over fences, and even occasionally into backyards. We knew from experience which neighbors might give us trouble and tell our parents what we were up to.
When my friends were occupied elsewhere, I’d explore the neighborhood alone. I can still map out the plants I doted on along my West Texas street like it was yesterday. A wisteria trained into a single stem stood at the end of the block, almost like a short stylized tree you’d find in an Alice in Wonderland book. When it was in full bloom, I’d spend hours sitting underneath its low branches like I was in my own clubhouse, inhaling the sweet-corn fragrance from the long purple racemes.
I also visited the roses on the block, many quite tall and spindly from lack of pruning. I’d ramble around in the summer sun, going on tiptoe, sniffing to check which were scented and which weren’t. I can easily imagine a neighbor spotting me from the window and telling their spouse, “George, that Orr boy is in the backyard again.” I still find scentless roses a bit disappointing.
In our backyard was a single-petaled pink ‘Betty Prior’ rose by the back gate, flanked by two old-fashioned bridal wreath bushes (Spiraea x vanhouttei) that bloomed in a fountain of white froth in May. My dad and I also tended a low row of tiny Polyantha roses in the front beds and a classic ‘Chicago Peace’ hybrid tea in the back. I remember him telling me all the names of the roses and showing me their tags. Though these plants might be considered ordinary or outdated compared to newer hybrids, for me they hold a sentimental value.
Next to our front steps was a dense patch of red-flowered plants with a spicy, powdery fragrance I found intriguing. I enjoyed cutting the scarlet flowers with their brushy white stripes for the house, though my mom did not exactly enjoy the way the hollow stems dripped water on the carpet when I carried them in. For years, I tried to locate this mystery plant. Although they looked like some sort of frost-tender amaryllis, they were hardy, able to withstand the winter temperatures that could dip into the teens or twenties in our part of Texas. My parents referred to them as daylilies (Hemerocallis), but clearly they weren’t because they each had a distinct bulb. Years later, thanks to the internet, I found out that it was a St. Joseph’s lily (Hippeastrum x johnsonii), an heirloom variety of amaryllis that had become a pass-along plant in Texas, typically only found in older gardens. Once, when I was in my twenties and I’d returned to Texas for a visit to see my parents, I dug up a patch of the bulbs and transported them in a carry-on bag to NYC. I grew them in my apartment as a potted houseplant for a few years before they petered out.
Several houses on my West Texas block were distinctive because they avoided ordinary suburban foundation shrub plantings and tidy green lawns. One front yard featured what we’d now call a xeriscape or dry garden composed of crushed white rock, red yuccas, and silver santolina. I remember the tactile sensation of the little yellow pincushion santolina flowers when I’d crush them in my hand on the way to school. Most significantly, I recall their scent, which was acrid and bitter but pleasantly reminiscent of the desert not so many miles to the west of us. Currently, I grow half a dozen santolina in my Cape garden, and their scent evokes memories of those original plants every time I sniff them. Botanical fragrances have always been big triggers for me as mnemonic devices, not so surprising since the sense of smell is one of the most primitive of our senses, hardwired in our forebrain.
Though my dad didn’t consider himself much of a gardener, he greatly influenced my interests as a young child. He often took me for after-dinner walks on spring evenings to pick wildflowers, usually just the two of us. Texas wildflowers are in a class by themselves. The pungent smell of the blanket flowers, bluebonnets, coreopsis, evening primroses, paintbrushes, and sand verbenas we gathered to bring home takes me back to those days. And yes, we picked wildflowers back then—we didn’t know any better. They were ostensibly for my mom, but I suspect I might’ve treasured them even more. I made flower arrangements for her all spring and summer, sometimes from fields by the highway or from our garden, or sometimes from a neighbor’s yard.
Across the street from us lived an elderly couple with the wonderfully anachronistic names of Overton and Sybil Faubus, who enjoyed the act of gardening more than most of our other neighbors. I can picture them—Mrs. Faubus in her capri pants and bejeweled glasses, and Mr. Faubus always gentlemanly in his wide-brimmed ranch hat and khaki coveralls. During growing season, I’d often be at their side “helping out” while they worked. Their pristine lawn was the finest in the neighborhood, and they did not like us kids playing on it, particularly with games like swinging statue or red rover that involved a lot of running and skidding on the turf. The Faubuses had the first hydrangeas and lilacs I’d ever seen. Whether they realized it or not, they were my mentors as knowledgeable gardeners familiar with the names of the plants they were growing. The reverence and care they gave their gardens let me know that what they were growing was special, even if fairly common.
Recently, I started growing the old-fashioned annual balsam impatiens (also known as touch-me-nots) in memory of the Faubuses, who first demonstrated to me how the spring-loaded seeds exploded when pinched. Being rampant self-seeders, these plants have now popped up all over my vegetable garden, but I don’t mind. They’re easy to remove.
At this point you might be wondering, did this kid have friends? Yes, I did, thank you for asking. I was part of a gang of children on the block. During summer breaks, we’d meet up at a particular group of tall sycamores that served as our skyscraper meeting place. We usually climbed them as a group, each of us sitting on our preferred branch in the largest tree, which I had named Zeus after developing an obsession with my older sister’s Greek mythology schoolbook by Edith Hamilton.
Over the course of several summers, I ended up naming most of the larger trees on the block. Hera was naturally the large sycamore next to her husband Zeus. Poseidon was another tall tree located in my friend’s backyard with his wife Amphitrite next to him. Apollo and Artemis were two silvery pecan trees that were beautiful to look at but uncomfortable to climb with their rough bark. If any adults were paying attention in those days, they must’ve thought it odd to see a group of 8-year-olds running down the street proclaiming, “I’m climbing Zeus! I’ve got dibs on Poseidon!”
Our parents would have been horrified to know how far we’d clambered up those trees. I recall several instances when my friends and I climbed high into a fifty-foot sycamore, feeling it sway wildly in the winds of an approaching West Texas thunderstorm. Reflecting on it now, I feel a sense of fear in the pit of my stomach, but I didn’t feel afraid then. Like most young people, then and now, we were shielded by our naivety and sense of invincibility. What a thrill those climbs were as we screamed and laughed, the wind buffeting us as we perched precariously in Zeus’s upper branches and clutched the trunk. Only the onset of the first heavy raindrops and flashes of lightning would compel us to finally come to our senses and scramble down like silly monkeys.
The lesson? Our parents never knew a thing. We’re all still here, and I continue to have an enduring fondness for sycamores and their smooth, velvety branches.
Want to read the whole book? Pre-order The Gardener’s Mindset now. On sale May 5!
Excerpted from The Gardener’s Mindset by Stephen Orr. Text and photographs copyright ©2026 by Stephen Orr. Illustrations copyright © 2026 by Chad Jacobs. Photograph on page 75 by Johanna Burke. Photograph on page 198 by Nancy Iacoi. Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
A version of this article appeared in the April 27, 2026 print issue of Woman’s World.
