LOUISE RIOTTE
1909-1998

It's odd to think that someone who has sold hundreds of thousands of books on gardening by astrology wouldn't be recognized by many of the visitors to this page, but that is the case with Louise Riotte. Gardeners, especially of the natural variety, are more her readership.

About 15 years ago, when I was editing Shooting Star, a journal about astrology and flower essences, I exchanged a few letters with Louise, who at that time was a mainstay with the Llewellyn Moon Sign annuals. A delightful elderly lady from Oklahoma, she was extremely kind and more than willing to share her decades of experience with gardening by the Moon signs.

When I began working on the Memorial Website, I thought of her and imagined she must have passed on, but wasn't able to find any information. A year later, I finally was directed to a touching memorial on her publisher's web site. The photo above and the information below are from Storey Books, where you can also order her books.

Her publisher writes:

"Beloved Storey author and life-long gardener, Louise Riotte passed away in 1998 at the age of 89. She wrote twelve books on gardening, companion planting, and garden lore, among them the ever-popular Carrots Love Tomatoes, which has sold approximately 515,000 copies.

"Her father taught her to believe in and practice astrology, while her mother was a practicing herbalist. Together they inevitably influenced her life and her books. Her books still in print with us are: Roses Love Garlic, Astrological Gardening, Sleeping with a Sunflower, Catfish Ponds & Lily Pads, and her most recent book, Raising Animals by the Moon, which was published posthumously. Her own line drawings are included in all her books.

"Before authoring books, Riotte was a ghost writer for Simon & Schuster and for Jerry Baker's radio gardening show, and she wrote a number of articles for Organic Gardening as well. Riotte took pride in her garden near her home in Ardmore, Oklahoma, which her son Eugene helped care for in her later years."

NOTE: Her publisher also had the information that she was born September 25, 1909, but did not have her date of death.

I found your page while doing research on Louise Riotte and thought you might be interested in a copy of her obituary. It is from the Daily Ardmoreite newspaper, Ardmore Oklahoma and you can find it  posted to her memorial page on findagrave.com.

You can find it here

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=riotte&GScid=99403&GRid=23679167&


Thank you
Sally Bradshaw

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DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD? This memorial is interactive, and we welcome your memories and tributes, which we will add in the order received. (They may be edited for grammar, length, and suitability.) If there are any additional contributions we should mention or any inaccuracies in the memorial, please bring them to our attention. To suggest names, share memories, create tributes, or volunteer, send us an e-mail.

CREDITS: This page and the border were created by Donna Cunningham with graphics from a clip art disk by Micrografx. The photo and book cover are used with permission of Storey Books.