My New Book: Harry Potter: Herbology Magic

Some people knew I’ve been working on a “super-secret” project from last fall to this spring. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to just talk to a publisher in California about the project. The non-disclosure was to end when the book was listed on Amazon.

lt’s been listed on Amazon, here. Harry Potter: Herbology Magic: Botanical Projects, Terrariums, and Gardens Inspired by the Wizarding World will be available in late September this year, in time for Christmas sales.

Approached through Instagram and LinkedIn, they got my attention. “Solicitations” on Instagram are not ordinarily so professional.

Last July I was approached through Instagram and LinkedIn by and editorial director at Insight Editions, a publisher specializing in licensed books for pop culture franchises like Marvel, Disney, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, DC Comics, and Harry Potter, among many others. They publish books in the realms of music, beauty, art, crafts, sports, and gardening as well.

If you’re looking for the Parks and Recreation Galentines Day – The Official Guide to Friendship, Fun, and Cocktails; The Back to The Future Hill Valley Cookbook, or Star Wars: Knitting the Galaxy, this is the publisher you’ve been searching for.

Warner Brothers wanted more terrariums. I learned a lot, only having made terrariums sporadically over the years.

I thought I was being asked to pitch for the book but was told I was sought out.

When you Google “Harry Potter Garden,” a post on the garden I started with my daughter back in 2008, shows up. Images from the garden also show up often on Pinterest. We planted it together so I could get her interested in gardening. We’d buy weird-looking plants at garden centers and give them names of magical plants from the Harry Potter books. It didn’t take by the way. She’s 25 now has no interest in gardening.

Add to that, I’d already co-written a garden design book, Buffalo Style Gardens: Create a Quirky, One-of-a-Kind Private Garden with Eye-Catching Designs, and written other articles on gardening.

This was the first photo and spread I saw from the book. My eyes may well have welled with tears. I can’t say for sure.

I’ve also had this garden blog, Art of Gardening, since around 2006, filled with DIY garden art projects that I’ve done around my own garden.

I give talks to garden groups about how to add one’s own personality to gardens, adding garden art, as well as garden tourism.

As publishing drop date in September gets closer, I will be selling author-signed Harry Potter: Herbology Magic here on my blog.

I imagined it helped that I was a member of GardenComm (formerly the Garden Writers Association), was involved with and attended garden bloggers’ meet-ups in different cites around the country each year. I’m also on the boards of Gardens Buffalo Niagara, the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens. Industry networks matter.

Having led Garden Walk Buffalo for years, and involved with events like the East Side Garden Walk, Open Gardens WNY, The Buffalo Style Garden Art Sale, Urban Farm Day, and dozens of other garden-related educational and recreational events could not have hurt either.

The Table of Contents, a list of weird and wild craft projects.

What matters more is the magic of social media.

One of the first questions I was asked with my previous book was my social media and blog audience numbers. That was part of an author’s questionnaire I filled out for Insight Editions as well. That matters to publishers.

This is a sample of what I did to pitch each project.

A writing wizard

I started with pitching about 40 different DIY projects with quick-drawn sketches and written descriptions. 27 Craft projects made it into the book. The “clients” for the publisher, or at least the companies to get a go-ahead and permission from for all projects was Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc. and J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World (J.K. Rowling’s licensing company).

Considering Warner Brothers and Wizarding World are two of the world’s largest and most sophisticated licensing organizations, approvals were easy – and fast! Warner Brothers had a few directions (more terrariums!) and wanted minimal use of plastics/PVC and spray paints. It made us rethink a couple projects, but they were at least things I “got” and could get behind.

Since this was a Warner Brothers property, anything in the book had to reference the eight Harry Potter movies. There were a few plant names and projects that related to the books. Those were weeded out early on.

One of my favorite crafts in the book. A bottle cap, marble, some leather, plants, a flask planter, and imagination.

My contact was with editor Anna Wostenberg. She was a dream. She coordinated the entire effort from concept to completion, managing a team that included the writer of the introductions to each project (the “flavor” text), photographer, stylists, illustrator, copy editor, proofreaders, and though she never mentioned them, her in-house management and accounting departments. Editors never get the credit they deserve.

Other than a few emails back and forth, I never met co-author Jody Revenson. She has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Harry Potter movies and behind-the-scenes filming, set designs, props, locations, and actors from the movies.

Look for this and dozens of other Harry Potter crafts in my garden for tours in July.

Text, in my case, was mostly the step-by-step instructions for the crafts. I did name each project with Anna’s help. There were also other sections, not involving crafts, I wrote including: Safety Tips, Terrarium Terminology; Wizarding World Plant Substitutes; Real But Weird Plants; Types of Gardens; The Magic of Pollinators; Why use Latin for Spells, Charms, and Plant Names; Zone Grown; and Native Plants; and many plant lists and sidebar information for crafts.

A first deadline for concepts was around Labor Day. The next deadline for text was around Halloween. A hard deadline for all content written was Thanksgiving. Proofing happened over the holidays through January.

I designed this Cornish Pixie in an air plant cage with the pixie inside. Warner Brothers prefers animals depicted *outside* cages!

I made all the projects here in Buffalo between Thanksgiving and Christmas (give or take). When done, all but terrariums and the largest projects were shipped to California to be photographed (you can’t ship terrariums!). The large projects, a Deathly Hallows Trellis and Forbidden Forest Fence Planter were re-created in California. The terrariums were recreated by the photo stylists.

When done, everything sent was shipped back to me. You can see them all if you stop by our garden when it’s open for tours for Garden Walk Buffalo (America’s largest garden tour!) at the end of July and Open Gardens WNY (Thursdays, 2-6 p.m. in July). There will even be a few other projects completed, but not produced for the book, on view.

When I saw the first few photos I was blown away. Being and art directer in ad agencies, and having my own design studio for 22 years, I’ve worked with dozens of photographers and stylists. I could not be happier with the quality and creativity of the photos throughout the book. The craft photos are interspersed with stills of sets, props, concept images, and actors from the movies.

Some projects were easy to create and were just good garden-oriented projects – but with names that tied them to the movies, like this *Neville Longbottom Propagation Station*, complete with a sidebar on ways to propagate a variety of different kinds of plants.

This is not a children’s crafts book.

There are many crafts parents can do with children, but many require power tools and some previous know-how. We’ve noticed, with our Harry Potter Garden during garden tours over the last few years, that visitors in their late 20s and early 30s are the most rabid Harry Potter fans. The first book came out 25 years ago. The early Potterheads are now all buying homes and introducing their own kids to the Harry Potter books.

Anyone that’s been to my garden before will recognize this rain chain I made almost ten years ago.

I do have some thank yous to add, not included in the book.

An extra special thank you to Leslie, my wife, for cheering me on (she’s the most enthusiastic Harry Potter book fan in the house) and encouraging me. She also added her skills and creativity to two projects. Channeling and challenging her 1970s macramé-making abilities to the Hogwarts Houses Macramé Planter Hangers and sewing magic to the Sorting Hat Hanging Basket (apparently sewing landscape fabric has its challenges!).

My favorite project to make. Typography is in my bailiwick. There will be a webpage to visit to download templates for the type and other projects in the book.

Thank you to the experts at garden centers that helped me learn more about terrarium plants, air plants, and bog gardens: Johanna Dominguez of Put A Plant On It, Patty Jablonski-Dopkins of Urban Roots Cooperative Garden Market, Billy Sandora-Nastyn of Daddy’s Plants, and Larry Nau of Bergen Water Gardens & Nursery.

Daughter Margaux, around 2008 with the original HP garden, in a wizarding wardrobe made my Buffalo’s costuming magician Donna Massimo.

I would be remiss not to again mention and thank our daughter, Margaux, for spurring me onto this charmed path.

Many thanks go to the team that produced this book:

Publisher: Raoul Goff
VP of Licensing and Partnerships: Vanessa Lopez
VP, Creative: Chrissy Kwasnik
VP, Manufacturing: Alix Nicholaeff
VP, Editorial Director: Vicki Jaeger
Publishing Director: Jamie Thompson
Designer: Lola Villanueva
Editor: Anna Wostenberg
Editorial Assistant: Samantha Alvarado
Managing Editor: Maria Spano
Senior Production Editor: Katie Rokakis
Senior Production Manager: Greg Steffen
Senior Production Manager, Subsidiary Rights: Lina s Palma-Temena
Photographer: Ted Thomas
Assistant Photographer: Amani Wade
Stylist: Elena Craig
Assistant Stylist: Patricia Parrish
Plant Aficionado: Meredith Law
Photoshoot Art Director: Judy Wiatrek Trum
Technical Illustrator: Anastasia Shumeeva

I had to rewrite my history.

This is just one of many Harry Potter projects you’ll see in our garden this year.

As I contemplate new creative projects and spend the rest of my life trying to create a kick-ass obituary, I started by writing a new author’s bio for just for this book:

Jim Charlier didn’t become a Garden Wizard until he and his wife, Leslie, bought their first home. By leading America’s largest garden tour, Garden Walk Buffalo, he discovered gardens are magic – creating beauty in neighborhoods, conjuring communities of gardeners, and charming visitors from around the globe.

His garden blog, ArtofGardening.org, chronicles he and Leslie’s visits to gardens around the world as well as how-tos for creative projects he’s DIY’d in his own garden – projects like a Harry Potter Garden of potion-making fictional plants, an ever-raining rain chain, a potting shed he designed and built, fruit tree espaliers, a pollinator garden, a checkerboard garden, seven homemade fountains, a glass flower collection, a vertical succulent garden – topped by a lightning-scar-shaped lightning rod on their 1897 turreted Victorian home in the enchanting city of Buffalo, NY.

Jim’s formative years were spent as an advertising agency art director. He now has his own graphic design studio. His garden writing and photography have been published in garden magazines and books nationwide. He co-authored the books Buffalo Style Gardens, Create a Quirky, One-of-a-Kind Private Garden with Eye-Catching Designs and Harry Potter: Herbology Magic: Botanical Projects, Terrariums, and Gardens Inspired by the Wizarding World.