Before We Leave explores what it means to know a place deeply and what happens when we prepare to leave it. Through careful observation and honest reflection, this publication will document both a specific journey - from Cumbria to Cornwall - and thoughtful explorations of home, belonging, and the universal experience of change.
Whether you’re facing your own transition, deeply attached to a particular place, or drawn to thoughtful explorations of home and belonging, Before We Leave offers a space for understanding how places shape us and how we leave our mark upon them. Here, we acknowledge both the excitement and romance of new beginnings and the profound act of saying goodbye to a beloved place.
As a free subscriber you’ll receive
Occasional long-form essays exploring the connections between people, place and nature over the passage of time.
Reflections on the process of researching and making a community archive.
Join as a Paid Subscriber (£50/year)
Paid subscribers receive all free content and:
Monthly chapters from Before We Leave: A Memoir of Moving Home in written and audio formats. (Available from February 18 2025)
Original ambient soundscapes (3-5 mins.) composed, engineered and produced by Bee Lilyjones and friends.
Opportunities to contribute as guest editors, writers, or filmmakers.
One-to-one support for work that helps preserve local knowledge.
Please message me if paying for a subscription isn't an option for you - I'd be really happy to gift you a year's subscription. I want these stories and sounds to reach everyone who might find comfort or inspiration in them.
About Us
Before We Leave is a multimedia publication curated by me, a non-fiction writer and artist-gardener, and my husband, M, a landscape gardener.
While continuing our three-decade journey in garden design and garden landscaping through our practice About the Garden, this Substack embraces both our established horticultural expertise and our evolving creative paths.
M has always been a self-employed landscape gardener and plantsman. We’ve made gardens together for a long time, finding contentment in the quiet rhythms of residential spaces - the everyday poetry of growth and change that unfolds far from the spectacle of Chelsea Flower Show and the like. Our work has taken us from England’s South West coast to its North West coast, each garden teaching us something new about belonging.
We’re known for our commitment to hand-drawn garden design plans, organic gardening and creating naturally beautiful, biodiverse spaces that blur the boundaries between garden and wild landscape, and we’ve transformed gardens across Southern England and Cumbria. But we’re scaling back our practice as we prepare for our move to Cornwall.
Way back, I was an amateur gardener with a passion for organic growing. After a time in London’s Creative Industries, I returned to formal education, eventually weaving ecological horticulture and garden-making with filmmaking and gallery curation, bringing art and stories to rural spaces. Writing has always been there too, a constant companion helping me make sense of it all.
Now, Before We Leave brings these threads together - the gardener’s patience, the curator’s eye, and the writer’s need to write.
