From digging in the dirt to pulling weeds—not to mention spreading stinking piles of fertilizer around—gardening can seem like backbreaking, smelly, messy work. If you’re the type who’d rather nurse a nice cocktail with friends than spend hours outside in a pair of wet rubber boots, a new book by Roberts Creek residents Christina Symons and John Gillespie might well propel you toward a few baby steps outdoors.

Everyday Eden (Harbour) isn’t a book about gardening, décor, or entertaining—it’s a delightful mélange of all three. “It’s less about manure and more about mojitos,” says Symons, a freelance writer and photographer, in conversation at the Straight offices. “The book is really about having fun and not getting overwhelmed.”

Adds Gillespie, a landscape designer and horticulturist: “I’ve been gardening for all my life, and I’ve even found gardening books to be too serious. They’re hard to read, they’re not approachable. I think this one is approachable, especially for most people that aren’t doing this on a day-to-day basis.”

More than 100 garden-inspired projects are outlined in their book, covering the gamut from making lavender wreaths to preparing frozen salad bowls encrusted with herbs and flowers. One of their sweetest, and most functional, projects is the Wee Bee House. Similar to a birdhouse, it sports eight-millimetre holes lined with drinking straws, and is a cute way to attract nature’s busiest pollinators to your garden.

“The typical European honeybee has some health issues with mites,” Gillespie points out. “So our native bee, our blue orchard bee or mason bee, will pollinate more aggressively than our honeybee.” Symons notes that the mason bees don’t make honey, nor do they sting. “You could have this little bee house on your patio or balcony,” she suggests. “We like to keep things simple, and really, all the bee’s looking for is a little hole that it can be safe in, lay its eggs, and reproduce.”¦The bee doesn’t need it to be cute. We just do that for our own sake. It’s a little project you can make with your kid in an hour.”

If there’s one type of plant that recurs in the book, it’s succulents, which the authors coax into wreaths, sculptures, and even hanging boxes, with little more than chicken wire, soil, and burlap.

“They’re very drought-tolerant, and they don’t need much planting space,” explains Gillespie. “They’re very hard to kill,” Symons chimes in. “And they’re very architectural.”

If you’re truly intimidated by creating a garden plot, Symons suggests taking a cue from Europe. “There’s a kitchen potager in the book, which is sort of a French kitchen garden on your windowsill. It’s just some herbs,” she explains. The small basket is filled with parsley, sage, rosemary, basil, dill, and even some edible flowers such as pansies. “It just makes everyday experiences a little bit richer when you connect to something fresh like that.”

And the one must-have herb? “Just grow a little bit of mint,” she suggests. “Everybody can grow mint.” Mojitos, anyone?