Marta McDowell

Marta McDowell teaches landscape history and horticulture at the New York Botanical Garden. Her latest book is Unearthing The Secret Garden, about the inspiration for the children's classic. Timber Press also published Emily Dickinson's Gardening Life, The World of Laura Ingalls Wilder, All the Presidents' Gardens, and Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life, now in its eighth printing. She is working on a new book about plant and gardening themes in crime fiction, due out in 2023.

Marta is the 2019 recipient of the Garden Club of America's Sarah Chapman Francis Medal for outstanding literary achievement. She likes to read, knit, and garden. Her husband, Kirke Bent, summarizes her biography as "I am therefore I dig."