H. Peter Loewer is a writer, graphic artist, photographer, and botanical illustrator who deals with books on natural history, gardening, great gardeners, and science for children.
He has written over thirty books on gardening and natural history, including the award-winning The Wild Gardener and Thoreau’s Garden. Peter lives in Asheville and gardens on the shores of Lake Kenilworth, working on an acre of land featuring natural trails and a formal perennial garden. Many of the rare and more unusual plants in his garden are grown from seed, usually supplied by membership in the American Rock Garden Society, the Royal Horticultural Society in London, and from trading with other gardeners. For decades Peter has won acclaim for his books The Wild Gardener, The Evening Garden, Jefferson’s Garden, Thoreau’s Garden, The Moonflower, and numerous how-to and problem-solving guides.
He graduated from the Albright Art School of the University of Buffalo with a degree in graphics and a minor in art history. Upon graduation he was awarded the Max Beckmann Fellowship to the Brooklyn Museum Art.
In 1973 he wrote the first book on ornamental grasses, Growing and Decorating with Ornamental Grasses, then in 1994 he published the first book on nocturnal flowers for bloom and fragrance, called The Evening Garden. His book, The Wild Gardener, was named one of the best 75 garden books of the 20th Century by the American Horticultural Society. Dealing with a few of the nation’s horticultural greats, he also wrote and illustrated Thoreau’s Garden and Jefferson’s Garden.
Peter has a monthly call-in garden show on public radio in Asheville, and is on-air with morning host Ken Adams the first and third Thursday of the month, talking about unusual plants and horticulture lore. He is also the contributing editor for Carolina Gardener magazine and a popular speaker.
Today, Mr. Loewer teaches art at the North Carolina Arboretum, Montreat Elderhostel, AB-Tech, and every three years at Penland School in Spruce Pine. He also practices printmaking, and works on pen and colored-pencil renderings of native plants and their pollinating insects.
Visit his website, www.thewildgardener.com, for more information.
The Last of the Swindlers
Peter Loewer will debut his new novel, The Last of the Swindlers, on May 25, 2021. The book is the 25th release from Pisgah Press, LLC, since its founding in 2011.
Unlike his many previous books, The Last of the Swindlers is a retro murder mystery, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina in 1978. Earlier in his life, Loewer himself worked as the editor of a small-town newspaper, and he drew on his experiences there to create the novel.
As the publishing trade begins its transition from traditional cold-type to electronic publishing, The Last of the Swindlers captures the magic of story-gathering and small-town politics as it evolves into tracking down a double murderer, a smuggling ring, and fraud. The protagonist, Oliver Swindler, risks his own life and that of his new-found girlfriend and coworker, Adrian Knapp, to solve the many layers of mystery that beset Fernglade, NC.
The novel also previews, in an unexpected way, the current phenomenon of wealthy big-city residents’ flight to smaller, less urbanized areas of the country. Although today’s migration is to escape the Covid-19 pandemic, the book paints a wry picture of self-indulgent rich people’s search for an “undiscovered paradise” (with, of course, all the comforts of the metropolis).
- American Gardens
- The Annual Garden
- Container and Fragrant Gardens
- Bringing the Outdoors In
- The Evening Garden Fragrant Gardens
- Evergreens: A guide for Landscape, Lawn, and Garden Gardening for Wildlife
- Gardens by Design
- Gardens of North Carolina
- Hydroponics for Houseplants
- The Inside-out Stomach
- Jefferson’s Garden Loves Me, Loves Me Not
- The Moonflower Native Perennials for the Southeast
- Organic Gardener’s Annuals
- Ornamental Grasses
- Pond Water Zoo
- Rodale’s Annual Garden
- Secrets of the Great Garden
- Seeds: The Definitive Guide
- Small-Space Gardening
- Solving Deer Problems
- Solving Weed Problems
- Step-by-Step Annuals
- Thoreau’s Garden Tough Plants for Tough Places
- The Wild Gardener
- Wildflower Perennials for your Garden
- Wildflowers & Native Plants
- The Winter Garden
- A Year of Flowers
