RE: [GWL]Garden Globes

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Amaryllis Named Best Book by Garden Writers Association

Washington, DC – June 1, 2003 – A luscious collection of photographs of a single breathtakingly beautiful tropical bulb – the Amaryllis - has received the Garden Globe Award for Best Book of the year.  

The Garden Writers Association (GWAA.org) presented the award to the book’s publisher, Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.  Reviewers called the photography by award-winning photographer Starr Ockenga as “stunning”, “gorgeous” and “extraordinary.”

Amaryllis is the story of one winter when Ockenga (Earth on her Hands) set up a greenhouse in the Hudson River Valley to ward off the cold and soothe her ache for some exotic warmth. She soon developed an obsession with one bright flower, the amaryllis, and amassed 350 plants of over 90 varieties.

Restricting herself to natural light and a single camera, lens and film type, she set out to document her flowers, their "architectural stature, brilliant wardrobes, and enigmatic personalities."

Of Amaryllis, Publisher’s Weekly wrote that “Ockenga focuses her lens on every stage of amaryllis life, from oniony bulb to withered stalk. . .  illustrated with almost 100 exquisite photos.”

Clarkson Potter is now a finalist for the Garden Globe Award of the Year, the highest honor bestowed on a horticultural communicator. The award will be announced at the 55^th annual GWA Symposium in Chicago on August 18, 2003.

“Each year the GWA seeks to recognize the best talent in the field of garden communications to receive one of our coveted Garden Globe Awards,” says GWA Executive Director Robert LaGasse.

Since the early 1980s, the GWA annual awards program has recognized outstanding writing, photography, graphic design and illustration for books, newspaper stories, magazine articles and other works focused on gardening. In recent years awards have expanded to include on-air talent, production and direction for radio, television, video, Internet and other electronic media.

GWA is an international organization of more than 1,800 professional communicators in the lawn and garden industry. 

To view all the 2003 Garden Globe recipients, log on to www.gwaa.org/awards.