Pick up a copy of Winston-Salem author Emily Herring Wilson’s new book, Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence: Discovered Letters of a Southern Gardener, and prepare to become enchanted with its subject.

Lawrence grew up in Raleigh, where her love of gardening began. She became a garden writer, and her 1942 book A Southern Garden remains a classic. She shares her candid and often humorous observations of family, friends, gardening, and life in letters to her friend Ann Preston Bridgers, founder of Raleigh’s Little Theater.

“I think in few letters do you have such a clear narrative,” Wilson says. “It truly shows how [Lawrence] grew a life.” Wilson also penned two previous books about Lawrence, who Horticulture magazine named one of the 25 greatest gardeners in the world.

Wilson admits she began her research on Lawrence to “erase my own prejudice of the narrowness of her life. I wrote about her because I thought I would understand her.”

During her research, Wilson learned to garden to understand Lawrence’s passion. “One thing about a garden is you live in the moment. You know there are seasons; the flower will come again.”

That simplicity and focus on the present was enough for Lawrence, who Wilson quotes, “I want you to know how much I have loved life and how necessary it was just the way I played it.”

Becoming Elizabeth Lawrence: Discovered Letters of a Southern Gardener, is published by John F. Blair, Publisher Inc. Hardcover is $19.95. Available at bookstores and blairpub.com