Monica Moran Brandies

Monica Brandies has written eleven books, 8 completely and 3 with three different co-authors. She has been gardening all her life, publishing since 1961, and raising their nine children since 1959. The youngest, with Down syndrome, is still living at home.

Her articles appear weekly in the Brandon News (Florida) and are often seen in magazines such as Florida Gardening.

Monica Brandies has been gardening since she was a child. In college she studied horticulture and landscape design since she figured she wouldn't always have a farm. She went to the Pennsylvania School of Horticulture for Women, which became part of Temple University from which came her degree.

She and husband David did very well growing 90% of the food for a family of ten on two small acreages in Ohio and Iowa. They were complete flops when they tried to become real farmers. They were also less than successful in a greenhouse and flower shop business, partly because she kept having babies in the busiest times.

Since 1987 she has been gardening on a half acre of sandy yard in Florida sand with some amazing success and has finally reached her goal of having some fruit, some flowers, and some vegetables to pick almost every day of the year.

She has had a weekly garden column for more than 25 years, and has written 10 gardening books, including one for Ortho, one for Sunset, and one for Better Homes and Gardens, many magazine articles, and given talks in five different states. Her main garden rule is to enjoy the process and make your yard, the little bit of the world you can control, what you most need to make your life good.

Like most gardeners, she is learning something new all the time. She manages to get her garden decent enough to invite her readers once a year, even though David was afraid it would ruin her credibility. The rest of the time she uses it for experimentation and therapy.

She uses a minimum of water and energy. While her neighbors were manicuring their yards, she was plowing hers up. Her garden tractor only ran for the 15 or 20 years she had a resident son to keep it going. Then she gave it away and resorted to the mulch and newspaper method of turning turf into garden. After there were no more teenagers for lawn mowing, she turned to a lawn man who cost no more, never complained, and didn't want to use her car on weekends. He said she had the only yard he never left hungry.

Monica has spoken to church groups, plant societies, garden clubs, and other groups in five states with talks that combine inspiration, entertainment, and information.

She brings, sells, and signs books at speaking engagements.