Barbara Segall is Editor of The Horticulturist, the quarterly journal of The Chartered Institute of Horticulture, whose members are leading professional horticulturists in the UK and abroad. She is also once again editing Herbs magazine for The Herb Society, a post she held previously in the 1990s for several years. She also edits the bi-monthly newsletter of The Garden Media Guild, GMG News.
Barbara Segall obtained a B for botany in her matriculation examination at Durban Girls’ College, Natal South Africa in 1965. She went on to become a journalist and worked in Durban before coming to live and work in London in 1970. She worked as a précis writer, personal assistant and general technical sub-editor.
She decided to specialise in garden writing in 1986 and became a student at Otley College in Suffolk, where she obtained a certificate in Amenity and Decorative Horticulture.
Throughout 2001 she contributed the Growbag column to The Times weekend section. She has contributed to the gardening sections of a number of consumer magazines, including Inspirations, Homes & Ideas and the East Anglian Daily Times, monthly Women’s Supplement, Women in East Anglia and to gardening sections of daily newspapers. She has written for gardening partworks including My Garden, published by Marshall Cavendish, and Gardening Made Easy, published by International Masters Ltd. She contributed regularly to Retirement Now, Homes & Gardens and Smallholder.
Recent books include Pots and Plants (Mitchell Beazley, 2006), Gardens by the Sea (Frances Lincoln, October 2002) and The Practical Kitchen Garden (New Holland, 2001; republished in 2010 as Growing Food in Small Gardens). For the touring guide The Gardens of Spain and Portugal (Mitchell Beazley, 1999) she made extensive visits to Spain and Portugal visiting and photographing some 140 garden and landscape sites.
Other books include The Ultimate Herb Gardener for Cassell (1998); Beautiful Borders (Lorenz Books, 1996); The Christmas Tree (Ebury Press, London and Clarkson & Potter, New York, 1995); The Herb Garden Month by Month (David & Charles, 1994). Her first book, The Holly and the Ivy (Random House UK and Clarkson Potter USA, 1991) was awarded a Quill and Trowel by the Garden Writers’ Association of America.
In 2005 she was the main contributor to a booklet produced by the World Cancer Research Fund entitled Growing Your Own Plant Foods. She is one of a number of contributors to 1001 Gardens to See Before You Die (Quartet Books) and also contributed garden entries to Phaidon’s The Garden Book.
Barbara Segall was one of the founding hosts on the Country Garden Forum, part of the website, expertgardener.com and also contributed to the website’s magazine.
She was editorial consultant for Botanica, an A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants, published in autumn 1997, by Random House Australia (Pty) Ltd and adapted six plant titles for Random House Australia.
She is a member of a number of horticultural societies including the International Dendrology Society. She lectures on various subjects to gardening groups and specialist societies. Her horticultural expertise is supported by professional training in journalism and experience in international full-colour magazine production, as well as editorial on various publications. She maintains an extensive library of periodicals and books and is in regular touch with horticultural friends and consultants worldwide.
Barbara Segall is a former chairman of the East Anglian Garden Group and was a member of the steering group that set up the Suffolk Gardens Trust. She is a past chairman of the Suffolk Group of Plant Heritage (formerly the National Council for the Preservation of Plants and Gardens) and edited its bi-annual newsletter for ten years. She is a Member of Perennial (formerly the Gardeners’ Royal Benevolent Society).
In 2013 Barbara became a member of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, a City of London Livery Company.
Awards
In 2003 Barbara Segall became a Fellow of The Institute of Horticulture (now The Chartered Institute of Horticulture). Prior to this, in 1997, she received a Commendation for Services to the Eastern Branch of the Institute of Horticulture.
An article, entitled Let the Grass Grow, published in The Garden, November 1993, was awarded a Garden Writer Award 1993 by the Garden Writers Guild (now the Garden Media Guild).
In 1991 her book, The Holly and the Ivy, a celebration of Christmas, Ebury Press (UK) and Clarkson Potter (USA) 1991, received a Quill and Trowel Award from the Garden Writers Association of America.
Practical
Barbara is developing a new town garden in Sudbury, where she grows ornamental and productive plants in containers and in the ground, and is enthusiastic about low-maintenance gardening. For a number of years she grew, bunched flowers and sold flowers at farmers’ markets.
Professional Membership
Fellow of Chartered Institute of Horticulture
Fellow of the Linnean Society
Society of Authors
Garden Media Guild
Garden Writers of America
Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders
Guild of Food Writers
Guild of Agricultural Writers
British Society of Magazine Editors