ARMED with her second-hand camera, environmentalist and author Lisa Greene spent much of the last year scouring Bermuda's green spaces for pictures of the local flora for her new publishing project.

Hunting for the perfect blossum, though, wasn't the most challenging part of publishing the second 2009 instalment of her successful engagement diary series entitled Bermuda's Flora.

Going through mountains of the accompanying information took much longer and was, she admits, a lot less fun.

"Sitting myself down at the computer and doing the rewriting was a challenge," she said.

"I had seven years worth of articles for the Mid-Ocean News to go through and because it's important to get things right, I reviewed every article, checked all the facts and added new information. It's hard to make myself to do that and sit at a desk for many hours."

Mrs. Greene wrote a weekly column, Gardener's World and later Greene Thumb, for the Mid-Ocean News for more than seven years.

With the second volume of Bermuda's Flora, Mrs. Greene hopes people will enjoy learning about the various plants in Bermuda and will encourage people to protect them and the environment they grow in.

"Knowing the name of the plant is great, but knowing things like where it came from, what it is used for and what it is related to, are things that people really like to know," she added.

The 2009 engagement diary contains photographs of 27 new plants with accompanying text describing each species in detail. Pictures also include invasive, endemic and even ornamental plants and weeds.

"I wanted to include more than just one image of each plant," she said.

"I wanted to show different aspects, so that people will perhaps see things about a particular plant that they had never noticed before. It's amazing what you see when you take the time to look!"

The "picture taking" as she refers to it, was squeezed into weekends and evenings around her full-time job and family.

"Of course managing to get days that aren't too windy or too bright . . . now that's a challenge," she explained.

Looking over the vast amount of articles she wrote for the Mid-Ocean News, Mrs. Greene feels she has at least 14 annual diaries lined up, if not more because of Bermuda's diverse and constantly growing variety of plants.

The inspiration for the annual diary installments came from the positive feedback she received for her weekly columns in the Mid-Ocean News.

Mrs. Greene points out that the aim of each diary is for people to use them throughout the year and at the end of each year remove the used diary pages and save the images and text as a guidebook to Bermuda's flora.

"People are seeing the 2009 Volume two on the shelves and then hear about Volume One, so sales for Volume One are still ticking along," she said with a broad smile.

Priced at $19.95, the second volume is available at Bookmart, Bermuda Bookstore, Book Cellar, Cooper's, as well as environmental charities including the National Trust gift shop, Bermuda Botanical Society, Bermuda Zoological Society and BEST. Volume One is also still available at these stores.

Sales have been slow since the book hit shelves early in November, but Mrs. Greene believes the downturn in the economy could be to blame. She is hopeful, however, that sales will pick up as Christmas draws closer.

"I've had people buy them because they need a diary and love plants, but they also make great gifts for family, friends or corporate clients," she said. "I also have copies in the US and England that I can post for customers and save them the trouble of international mail."

For more information about the diary or for copies to be sent to locations in the US and England contact Mrs. Greene on 297-1804 or via e-mail at elgreeneibl.bm.