Which Came First: The Root Stock or the Rose?
Donna Fletcher Crow is the author of 35 books, mostly novels dealing with British history. The award-winning Glastonbury, The Novel of Christian England, is her best-known work, an Arthurian grail search epic covering 15 centuries of English history. A Very Private Grave, book 1 in the Monastery Murders series is her reentry into publishing after a 10 year hiatus. The Shadow of Reality, a romantic intrigue, will be published later this summer.
Donna and her husband have 4 adult children and 10 grandchildren. She is an enthusiastic gardener and you can see pictures of her garden, watch the trailer for A Very Private Grave, and read her international blog at www.DonnaFletcherCrow.com
Click on any picture to see a larger image.
Now that scientists have decided that in the chicken-or-the-egg question the chicken came first, I suppose the answer would have to be that the Rose came first. I was set on this not-particularly-helpful course of thought when Lelia asked me to blog on how my garden has affected my writing. 
Upon reflection, I think it’s more a matter of my writing affecting my garden.
I’m certain that’s true when it comes to having an excuse for the flourishing weeds and the general overgrownness of it all. “But,” I quickly point out, “This is an English cottage garden. They’re supposed to be overgrown. Think Anne Hathaway’s Cottage.” It sounds good and I believe it most of the time. And then, of course, I can always fall back on the crowning excuse, “I have a deadline to meet.”
As to the ultimate influence, however, for both writing and garden, it has to come down to my obsessive Anglophilism. When asked why I have set most of my 35 books in England, when I live in the Idaho desert, I rather quickly discovered that replying, “What else is there?” wasn’t much of an answer.
So next I played around with theories of genetic memory. What good is it having an English great, great grandmother if I can’t blame my predilections on her? (And I did use some of Eliza Fletcher’s backstory in my family saga series The Daughters of Courage.) But at the end of the day, I’ll have to say that the answer comes down to that indefinable matter of “calling.” The thing I mean when I advise beginning writers to “Follow your passion.”
That is certainly what I have done in my lifetime of reading, beginning with the Brontes and Jane Austen; in my 35 years of writing beginning with my very first genre romance The Desires of your Heart in which an American heroine follows many of my own experiences on my first trip to England; and in my garden style which features a rose garden filled with David Austin English Roses, a curving stone path leading to a rose arbor, and sweeps of such English favorites as Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s Mantle), hostas, perennial geranium, and Valerian.
Many of these choices were growing in my daughter’s cottage garden when she and her husband went to Yorkshire to study in a theological college run by monks in The Community of the Resurrection. On my frequent visits I regularly 
worked in her garden and the year my son-in-law was appointed college gardener, I had the fun of gardening beside my favorite monk Fr. Dominic.
Well, A Very Private Grave, Book 1 in my Monastery Murders, hasn’t been released yet in North America (it was a June release in the UK, but we have to wait until late September on this side of the pond), so I can’t expect any of our readers to pick up on the clues I just dropped. Let me explain that the jacket blurb reads something like this:
Felicity Howard, a young American studying theology at the College of the Transfiguration in Yorkshire, is devastated when she finds her beloved Fr. Dominic brutally murdered and Fr. Antony, her church history lecturer, soaked in his blood .
A Very Private Grave is a contemporary novel with a thoroughly modern heroine who must learn some ancient truths in order to solve the mystery and save her own life as she and Fr. Antony flee a murderer and follow clues that take them to out-of-the way sites in northern England and southern Scotland. The narrative skillfully mixes detection, intellectual puzzles, spiritual aspiration, romance, and the solving of clues ancient and modern.
Felicity does take passing note of the local flora as they race from place to place, but you’ll understand that chasing and being chased by a murderer doesn’t allow much time for gardening.
Ah, there— I’ve just come up with another excuse!
Please visit my website http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/ to see the trailer of A Very Private Grave on the home page and click “Come into my Garden” in the menu to see a slide show.
August 24, 2010
Posted in: Guest Blogs
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13 Responses
Donna,
Your photos are gorgeous. I can almost smell the flowers. I downloaded THE SHADOW OF REALITY from Kindle to my PC Haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Something to look forward to!
Pat Browning
author of ABSENCE OF MALICE
blog: Morning’s at Noon
http://pbrowning.blogspot.com/
Thank you so much for coming by, Pat. Your garden experience would be complete if we couldj ust share a cup of tea, too.
And thank you, Leila, I’m delighted to be on Buried Under Books.
Beautiful gardens, Donna.
I give mine the old college try every spring, but then the weed stage a sneak attack during the night and the battle is lost. Friends ask why my husband (and sometimes co-author, Mike Nettleton)doesn’t pitch in since he hosts an on-air garden advice show. The answer to that is that he’s the host, not the expert, and the petunia is the only plant he’s been able to identify with at least 70% accuracy. And if it’s not blooming, he assumes it’s a weed. By this time of the summer, I retreat to the deck and take off my glasses–then it all looks terrific.
Another writer that enjoys her garden. What lovely pictures. I grow chrysanthemums to show in competitions sponsored by chapters of the National Chrysanthemum Society. I am also an accredited NCS judge.
How does staking and dis-budding new growth on over 500 stems of chrysanthemums help me write. Yes! It gives me time to mull over ideas and even come up with an article or two.
Oh, what fun to hear others’ garden stories. And I know each garden is as individual as the gardener. We should have a virtual tour.
What beautiful photos! A Very Private Grave sounds like a great read. Thanks for sharing.
Donna, thank you so much for sharing your pictures and your thoughts—it has been a real pleasure having you here
onna, yor garden is wonderful. It looks exacty like the garden I have always dreamed I could grow, but somehow mine never quite makes it. However, you’ve given me hope and I’ll try again. And as for your newest book–can we pre=order it from Lelia? Than kis, Kathleen Delaney
Kathleen—of course
Email me at cncbooks1@gmail.com and we’ll talk.
Your garden is really awesome. I really love your gorgeous flowers and the photos are really great! What do you call the violet flower on the last photo? They are really cute!
Rose, that lovely picture of Donna’s is lavender.
Your garden really looks great! I just started gardening last month and I’m hoping it to be like yours. I really want have advice from you on how to make my garden success.
Pink roses are my favorites! I just planted some of these and I can’t wait o see it bloom more flowers. By the way, your garden looks great and wonderful!
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