About Marta McDowell

Marta McDowell lives, writes and gardens in Chatham, New Jersey. She shares her garden with her husband, Kirke Bent, her crested cockatiel, Sydney, and assorted wildlife. Her garden writing has appeared in popular publications such as Woman’s Day, Fine Gardening and The New York Times. Scholars and specialists have read her essays on American authors and their horticultural interests in the journals Hortus and Arnoldia.

Following the relationship between the pen and the trowel led Marta to the poet Emily Dickinson. Marta’s book, Emily Dickinson’s Gardens, was published by McGraw-Hill in 2005. If you visit the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts, you can stroll the grounds with a landscape audio tour that Marta scripted in 2007. Marta was an advisor for the New York Botanical Garden's 2010 exhibit Emily Dickinson's Gardens: The Poetry of Flowers and was a featured speaker.

Marta teaches landscape history and preservation at the New York Botanical Garden and Drew University. She teaches gardening classes for Van Vleck House & Gardens. A popular lecturer on topics ranging from design history to plant combinations, she has been a featured speaker at locations ranging from Wave Hill to the Garden Club of Philadelphia and the Cummer Museum of Art in Jacksonville, Florida. With artist Yolanda Fundora, Marta wrote A Garden Alphabetized (for your viewing pleasure) in 2008.

Marta has interned at Wave Hill, Frelinghuysen Arboretum, the Royal Horticultural Society’s Rosemoor in Devon, England and at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. She worked as a horticulturist for five years at Reeves-Reed Arboretum in Summit, NJ. Her current projects include the restoration of a 1920s garden in Morristown and the history of Willowwood Arboretum in Chester. Marta is on the Board of the NJ Historical Garden Foundation at the Cross Estate.

Her husband, Kirke Bent, summed up Marta's biography as "I am, therefore I dig."