Nature’s Acre
A true story about a small Irish garden, mental health, and learning to live with wildlife instead of against it.
Part wildlife-garden diary, part community story, part account of holding a nervous system together with soil under the fingernails.
Ebook and paperback available now
What it’s really about
In a small town in Ireland, during lockdown, Spring 2020, Ciaran reads a book in the greenhouse.
The phone rings.
What follows will change his life, the life of his family, and his community.
This is Ciaran's first book. It shows how ordinary gardening fits into the long Irish tradition
of writing about nature, but in a way that anyone can enjoy and understand.
His writing blends sustainable gardening with expressive storytelling and a wry sense of humour,
drawing together plants, a sense of place, and a personal recovery.
This memoir can be described as a cross between H is for Hawk, Braiding Sweetgrass, with a smidgen of Diary of a Young Naturalist:
- like H is for Hawk, it finds deep meaning in the natural world as a path to recovery;
- like Braiding Sweetgrass, it combines practical sustainability with expressive storytelling to frame gardens as places of grounding and belonging;
- like Diary of a Young Naturalist, it offers genuine, compelling advocacy for biodiversity rooted in the Irish landscape.
Praise for Nature’s Acre
“Ciaran has a gentle and sensitive approach to gardening with nature in mind, leaving wild space for our shared kin, and growing chemical-free food and native plants. It is the future of landscape design.”
— Mary Reynolds, author, designer and founder of We Are The ARK – Acts of Restorative Kindness to the Earth
“Ciaran has always strived to bring gardening to the people, and people to the garden. His passion for community gardens, space for nature and challenging conventional thinking is a breath of fresh air.”
— Darragh McCullough, Elmgrove Farm and Garden Centre
A few lines from the opening
I step out the back door. A spring day, bright and sunny enough, making an effort, but not quite succeeding. It smells of rain and is not quite warm enough to sit outside on the granite patio.
I retreat to the greenhouse. The worn black parquet under my feet feels familiar. Inside, it’s warm and still, waiting for my company. The hexagonal frame, although modern, evokes another age. Around us, ferns and foxgloves crowd in.
A maple I planted when we first moved here has grown from restless youth into comfortable middle age, sheltering the greenhouse on one side. On two other sides a beech hedge, still wearing its winter coat, brown leaves rattle softly in the wind. Beneath it, wild garlic I planted years ago now spreads with feverish vigour.Close by but hidden, the road.
Life passes by, as it always does.
I sit and open the book.
Moments later…
The phone rings.
About the author
Ciaran De Buitlear is the husband of Fiona and dad to Sam and Zack.
He was born and raised in Dublin, but Stamullen, Co. Meath has been his home now for many years.
By day he is a database specialist for FINEOS Corp.
In his “spare time” he has spent decades cultivating gardens that are as much about nature as they are about beauty.
He is the founder of GardeningWell, an initiative for wildlife gardening and climate action.
A trustee of FreeTrees Ireland, he has helped distribute thousands of native trees across the country.