Pleasure Principles: An Almanac from the Garden

Pleasure Principles began as a year-long attempt to understand the garden around me, and what it could teach me about living a better life. It is not simply a gardening book, a cookbook, a workbook, or a history of plants. It is a collision of all those things: part garden almanac, part field guide, part art book, and part love letter to Mother Nature. Across more than 400 pages, it moves month by month through the year, gathering stories, recipes, rituals, and some magic for anyone who wants to get off their phone, off their ass, and back into the big wide world.

At its heart, this is a book about living a more interesting, exciting life through the things we can make, cook, grow, notice, and do. It is filled with planting and harvesting guides, seasonal recipes, monthly tasks, personal stories, scent explorations, herbal remedies, mythology, and botanical history. It is also a love letter to all the hands who have built the Flamingo Estate garden and orchard. To the people, plants, and animals that have shaped our life on this Los Angeles hillside.

There are hundreds of original photographs by Hugh Davison. Recipes by Chef Sandy Ho. Twenty-eight original oil paintings by John Regan. Design by Aaron Harvey and the in-house Flamingo team. Together, we have made something very special.

Think of it as a Farmers’ Almanac for the soul, and a Yellow Pages for anyone with green thumbs and middle fingers. A reference book to keep by your side. A tool for living.

This is a book about growth. And how to bloom in our own lives.

x Richard Christiansen