My life has been shaped by three intertwining passions—writing, cultivating plants, and immersing myself in other cultures and landscapes.
Gregg Orifici is a poet, memoirist, international educator and garden/landscape designer. His narrative and lyrical portraits of plants and people and place weave together documentary realism, social commentary, satire, and the quiet mystery of the everyday. His experiments with voice, structure and musicality commingle the intimate with the universal. Orifici captures the quiet mystery of the everyday alongside the extraordinary. In addition to Rattle of the Sun, a new book of poetry published by (Decatur Dixon Press (2025), he has published poems and creative nonfiction in Hippocampus, The Brussels Review, Hippocampus, Cactus Heart Press, Red Savina Review, AB Magazine, St. Sebastian Review, Hamilton Stone Review, and others.
Gregg is the founder and principal of The Gentle Gardener garden design, head gardener at Windy Mowing, Vermont, (2000-present), and has gardened in residence at The Great Dixter in England, Villa San Giuliano in Sicily, and Jardín Botánico de Vallarta in Mexico, inspiring his creativity, both on the page and in the New England gardens he designs. Gregg is a Fulbright finalist, and holds a JD from Vanderbilt University and an MFA in Creative Writing from University of New Hampshire. He lives with his artist partner and four Jack Russells on a hilltop garden-in-progress in southern Vermont.
Gregg is happy to share his writing and love of plants with audiences at various venues.
Contact him to schedule a reading or a garden consult.