Her father died before she was thirty, and her mother left after the funeral (looking for travel and adventure). Bell inherited the family business (a commercial nursery garden), and four younger siblings. She grew up fast, and with her aunt's help ran Haygarth for twenty years, becoming an accomplished professional gardener.

Bell enjoys gardening, but it was never what she wanted to do with her life. She was always more interested in the history of the different cultivars, and the people who developed them, than actually growing them in the garden. And eventually she discovered that she was equally interested in the history of the Shire, and everyone in it; and indeed, even of the wide world beyond its borders. It is the people who make up the world, and their strange quirks and habits, that both delight and fascinate her.

Now her sisters have grown up and taken over the business, and she is finally free to pursue her dreams. She wants to go everywhere, learn everything, meet everyone, and laugh at all the jokes. And if she has to teach some rude people a lesson in manners on the way, whether they be orcs or men, she is quite determined enough to do so.

But she always returns to the little home in the Shire she shares with her aunt, to catch up with family and friends, and get a bit of gardening done. Bell is equally at home in a Gondorian Study, or a vegetable patch. She never quite gets all the dirt out from under her fingernails.