Behind the posts, articles, conferences and social media, there’s a backstory. Have you kept up with the digital correspondence between Ranters Scott Beuerlein and Marianne Willburn?  You can start here, or go back and find the entire correspondence at Dear Gardener.

Cincinnati, Ohio

September 1, 2024

Dear Marianne,

Deep breaths, Marianne. Yes. Indeed. Deep breaths. Congratulations on winning Gold for your American Gardener Magazine column. Quite the accomplishment. But there’s this thing my Dad says when we’re watching football together and a player displays an extended endzone celebration after scoring a touchdown. He says, “Act like you’ve been there before.” I know you don’t watch many “sports games,” so maybe that metaphor misses, but the gloating in your letter actually did catch me by surprise. Not that I didn’t expect gloating. Of course I did. Just not so much of it. And I didn’t expect you to go so, apparently, Christopher Lloyd with how you disemboweled me so deftly with such swift swish-swooshing of your piercing, penetrating pen. My, how you have learned from your British heroes.

Here’s the thing. I’ve seen you win things before and not make much commotion about it whatsoever. And I know you have done amazing, beautiful acts of selfless friendship that I only learned about through others. I know you’re a class act. You are, essentially, a pretty good person.

I think I’ll just burn this. The photo is blurred, I think, because my tears fell on the camera lens. 

Therefore, I have to assume that all this unfettered, unfiltered, spewing of unseemly joy over having your column win the Gold Medal over my competing Horticulture Magazine column is because it was me. But, you know, I get that. I am tough competition. You didn’t expect to win, and, yet, you did. And that is something. I did hear a rumor. Something about a dead hooker seen being dragged out of one of the judge’s hotel rooms. But, just a rumor. I doubt it’s true. Or, if it is, that you had enough to do with it to hold up in court. 

Seriously, though, I am very happy for you. Sure, I needed a win. Big time. Been going through some tough times, you know. Really tough times, and a win would have been real nice, but, yes, I am so happy for you.

I must say this though. I’m just a little irked that you won it for your “Defense of…” column that you have chosen to no longer write. It was good, and needed, but I know you’ll have no problem finding trouble all on your own.

In fact, I seem to recall that you stirred some up fairly recently. Let me think. Oh yeah, I remember. You showed up at the most unstable region of the horticultural world and shot an archduke. Wow. Good work. As I seem to recall it, you basically accused some people in the native plant movement of scaling the cathedral steps, nailing a thesis on the door, and getting didactic all over everyone. Among other things, you seemed to suggest that many among that movement have adopted truths by faith alone, have tried to convert others by the sword, and have promised damnation upon those who don’t plant Pycnanthemum muticum and have never heard of Dirca.

For the record, I have grown Pycnanthemum.

And I have heard of Dirca.

Here is what amused me the most about that whole thing. I happen to know that when you hit send at that late hour on that drunken night that you fully expected to be crucified. But that didn’t happen. Lo, on the contrary, you were all but deified! In that one stroke, droves of horticulturists, having been preached at too many times, congregated in the comments section, all offering agreement, admiration, and allegiance. Marianne, I say this with all kinds of mixed emotions, but, my God, you’ve become their messiah!

A Gold Medal and becoming a messiah. Boy oh boy, you’ve had quite the summer! 

But it is a shame that the enthusiasm behind so many new and worthy plants and ideas into horticulture has become a source of argument. Mostly, I agree with what many said in the comment section, that this controversy is kept going by wave after wave of newbies who have read a book, maybe two, but really have little real experience growing plants in gardens. And horticulture is one vocation where experience really, really matters. It just takes time to knock chips off of shoulders, to wear a person down, and to wash away any lingering arrogance and leftover trust in easy answers. But, more on this later. Maybe. I wrote a whole lot more about this but, well, you know how affable I am. I don’t have much time anymore for bickering. I have become so bored by it and I don’t see any point in trying to win unwinnable arguments. I just want to quietly do my own thing. 

And so, finally, we have come to the part that’s about me.  

The back still hurts but the pain is mostly now in the hips. Our A/C went out (and needs replaced) in the middle of a major heatwave, five days before the symposium and four before the speaker’s dinner. 105F heat index. It threatened to storm, but barely rained. Nevertheless, the dinner went great. Most of us stood in small groups, talking in the drizzle. It’s always wonderful to hang out with other horticulturists, even when they’re wet. The symposium went well too. I’m very proud of how it came out. Not as proud of it as you are of your Gold Medal, but still very proud.

A photo of the garden being prepped for the speaker dinner. Not seen, invisible, is the heat!

A great docket of speakers all knocked it out of the park at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s Plant Trials Day.

Today marks my fourteen-year anniversary at the Cincinnati Botanical Garden & Zoo. This past symposium was probably our 37th. It’s been a lot of fun. I hope I can keep at it. 

Pulmonaria gasping for water, no real indicator of anything. It’s always thirsty. But when Heuchera villosa is flagging…

The garden is a wreck. I’ve watered and watered but it’s just life support at this point. I swear an inch of irrigation does less for a garden than a quarter inch of the real thing. I don’t know why that’s true, but it just is. I have steadily been accruing a pile of things to plant despite having sworn an oath that I wouldn’t, but there is no way I’m even thinking about planting them until this drought decides to move on. If it decides to move on. 

Yours,

Scott

PS-The only thing I’m truly envious about is that you’ve been to Hans Hansen’s private garden and I haven’t. What the hell!