Evergreen: The Botanical Life of a Plant Punk is Tim Entwisle's memoir of a life spent inside the world's great botanic gardens — and an argument that these institutions hold genuine answers to climate change, plant extinction, and the exhaustion of modern life.
About This Book
Part memoir, part manifesto, Evergreen follows Tim Entwisle across three of the world's most significant botanic gardens — Sydney, Kew, and Melbourne — tracing a career shaped by an unusual conviction: that cultivated green spaces are not merely pleasant amenities but essential instruments of ecological and cultural repair. Entwisle writes with the candour of someone who would rather study algae on a kerb than trek into wilderness, and the book is richer for that eccentricity. Threading together plant science, conservation, and personal history, it makes a serious case for botanic gardens as sites of urgent relevance — places where biodiversity, landscape design, and human wellbeing converge.
Key Features
- 360 pages of memoir, botanical science, and cultural reflection
- Author: Tim Entwisle, director at Sydney, Kew, and Melbourne botanic gardens
- Published by Thames & Hudson, ISBN: 9781760762254
What You'll Discover
- How botanic gardens function as active responses to climate change and plant extinction — not passive collections
- Why Entwisle values kerbside nature over wilderness, and what that preference reveals about urban ecology
- The intersection of science, landscape, and culture that defines great public green spaces
- How a career spanning Sydney, Kew, and Melbourne shaped one botanist's understanding of what these institutions can and should do
About the Author
Tim Entwisle is a botanist who has served as director at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne. His work spans plant science, conservation, and public engagement with the natural world. He has an alga named in his honour.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 360
- Dimensions: 233 x 153 mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9781760762254
- Publisher: Thames & Hudson
- Publication Date: [Details available upon request]
Perfect For: Landscape architects, botanic garden professionals, environmental designers, and readers drawn to the intersection of plant science, conservation, and public space.