Pat Welsh

Who is Pat Welsh?

Pat Welsh is a television performer, columnist, garden editor, public speaker, and author of “Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month by Month” and other books. As the host of a television segment on the evening newscast of San Diego’s NBC affiliate, Welsh pioneered the subject of gardening on the 6:00 p.m. newscast, the first show of its kind nationwide.

During her long career as a magazine editor, columnist, TV performer, and public speaker Welsh vigorously opposed the once-popular concept that gardening information and books for California must be written and published in England or New York. Instead, Welsh championed regional books and Mediterranean garden styles. She urged gardeners to turn away from English and east coast styles and thirsty lawns and instead to grow drought-resistant plants and use techniques and timing of garden tasks appropriate to the Mediterranean climate of Southern California, which is characterized by plentiful sunshine, mild temperatures, and dry summers with most rainfall occurring in fall, winter, and spring. Her approach combines the artistic elements of gardening, such as design and color, with practical skills for dealing with climate zones, soil types, plant materials, irrigation methods, and environmentally responsible methods of disease and pest control. An early emphasis on IPM was later replaced by a firm conviction that chemical pest controls have no place in the home garden. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Welsh has urged today’s gardeners to rely solely on poison-free organic methods and to feed plants with natural, organic fertilizers in place of synthetic ones.