Sabrina Hahn from Perth, WA shares her story below…
Picking up a trowel, I started digging up the soil as my mother, Jocylon, instructed.
“Once you’ve dug deep enough, we sprinkle in the seeds and cover them up again,” she explained.
It was 1957 and I was four years old.
Coming from a family of avid gardeners, it quickly became a way of life. We grew our own fruit and veg, and my four siblings and I were taught how to pickle and conserve from an early age.
It never felt like a chore. Instead, I found it exciting and creative.
Mum was constantly making changes to her garden based on ideas and inspiration she came across from visiting other gardens around the world, and I would watch on, fascinated.
There wasn’t a place on the planet where she couldn’t create a garden.
“What do you think?” she asked, once finished.
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I can’t wait to have my own garden one day.”
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I found being in the garden a magical experience, and that never left me as I grew up.
In fact, I loved gardening so much, I made a career out of it.
Aged 22, I studied horticulture at university, and then in 1985 I joined ABC Radio as the presenter of a gardening show.
Shortly after, I picked up a gardening column in The West Australian newspaper.
Through this platform, my aim was to bring fun and playfulness into gardening, with the hope it would inspire people to give it a go.
I wanted people to understand how important their gardens are.
So many species are on the brink of extinction, and if a person can put something into their garden that feeds the birds and bugs, then it helps rebuild biodiversity.
Being outside in nature is also great for mental health.
While working on the radio show, I realised one of the biggest factors that prevents people from gardening is that they don’t know where to start.
The huge variety of products and equipment found in gardening shops can be overwhelming, so people get flustered and give up.
It gave me an idea.
“I want to write a book to help people get into gardening when they don’t know how,” I said to my daughter Jess. “And I want to make it fun and cheeky to grab people’s attention.”
I decided to play on the fact that gardening is dirty work and give the book a humorous, sexual undertone.
Like sex, gardening is all about experimenting and enjoying the process.
Learning the right conditions can also lead to great joy, and TLC is crucial.
I was already a big supporter of World Naked Gardening Day, which occurs on the first Saturday of May every year.
It encourages people to strip off and get out into their garden.
I felt it was a great way to bring fun to gardening and wanted my book to do the same thing.
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“So much sex happens in the garden,” I told my publicist when pitching my book. “Birds, insects and plants are banging in the garden all the time.”
“I love it,” she told me, chuckling loudly.
Using a few naughty puns, I wrote down the basics of gardening.
“Who doesn’t love a good nibble?” I wrote, when talking about plucking and eating sun-ripened fruit.
“Give ’em a good squeeze,” I wrote, when talking about lemons.
I filled the book with colourful pictures to help the readers visualise what I was talking about.
It took me a year to write, but I loved every second I gave to it.
I even posed for some naked photos in my garden for the cover!
“Luckily the trees are big enough to stop the neighbours having a peek,” I said to the photographer, as I clambered into a wheelbarrow in the nude.
Over the next few hours, I posed with various pieces of gardening equipment and vegetables to cover up my bits and bobs.
It was exhilarating!
My book, How to Do It in the Garden by Sabrina Hahn was released on November 29, 2024.
“I don’t know how you’ve managed to make gardening so sexy, but you have,” one reader wrote to me.
I’m so happy I get to share my passion with the world, while saving the planet and being a bit naughty at the same time.
Buy Sabrina Hahn’s book from fremantlepress.com.au
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