In 1995, after 15 years, I closed Holbrook Farm and Nursery in North Carolina and moved back to Louisville, Kentucky. What was I going to do next? A cockamamie idea about making a documentary called the Four Seasons in Three Gardens came to mind. Funding would help. I figured I might have a little cachet in American horticulture, and I imagined Home and Garden Television (HGTV) would give me 15 minutes in person to make my pitch. I wanted to feature Clarence E. “Buddy Hubbuch,” a hero of mine. He worked at Bernheim Forest & Arboretum for 34 years. They didn’t take the bait.

Buddy Hubbuch and Mike Dirr, University of Georgia. Mike Hayman photo.

A fax arrived from HGTV, a few months later, stating clearly, “I urge you to stop calling and sending us new material.” I was one or two calls short of a cease-and-desist letter regarding a film proposal. Being cut down to size is humbling but not always shameful.

 

Plow on

In the 1970s I visited my father in an office he shared with his business partner. They had desks facing one another. Mr. Miller had framed diplomas from the Ivy League on his back wall. Dad had a framed penmanship award from Louisville Junior High School on his. He never lacked humility.

My father was a serial entrepreneur. He made and lost money but kept moving along. He sank the eight ball to win the game near the end of his career.

Dad faithfully encouraged me, without judgement, about various career ideas that started with saving the world, then to farming, and finally digging into horticulture.  The three have a lot in common. None of these are easy or lucrative career paths. He always knew someone I could talk to who might be helpful—from a Catholic priest, to a farmer, to a nurseryman. He rolled his eyes on the documentary idea. I don’t think he had been to a movie since the “Guns of Navarone” played at the Penthouse Theatre on 4thStreet in 1961.

A lot has changed over the last year

I am 75 now and garden in the Salvisa like there is no tomorrow. Well, I am a little slower but feel okay and don’t want my age to feel like presentiment for cease and decease.

There was a lot to sort through during the move last fall. Unfortunately, one large box of correspondence full of 50 years of precious memories got tossed by mistake. Who writes letters anymore? By hand. Preserved were more than a dozen unedited Beta film tapes from 31 years ago. The Four Seasons in Three Gardens, my short-lived, ill-fated documentary filmmaker phase, sat on shelf and haunted me for years.

Happy endings

That same 1995, late in the year, Klaus Jelitto, founder of Jelitto Perennial Seeds, came to Louisville to court me. I was flattered and needed a job. A real job. What a blessing. I happily stuck around with Jelitto for 22 years.

The film project was abandoned. Most of it was dull as dirt. Years passed. I kept thinking I might find something worthwhile, if not cinematic, in these tapes. A moment of clarity jumped in front of me in late July.

Filmmaker Morgan Atkinson, who led the filming, converted one small portion to digital—Buddy Hubbuch’s 1995 retirement party. It was wonderful to watch again, though I didn’t walk away thinking that Morgan should add this to his impressive film oeuvre.

 

Filmmaker Morgan Atkinson

I emailed the raw digital segment to Chuck Hubbuch, Buddy’s son, who a few weeks ago shared it with his sisters. Chuck had a successful career in horticulture, also. He was not at his dad’s retirement party. Chuck was collecting plants in Thailand for the Fairchild Botanic Gardens.

A bit of background about Buddy

A year-long internship at Kew Gardens awaited me at summer’s end in 1978. I spent the months before at Bernheim. Buddy was not impressed. I was the arboretum’s weed guy. A low rung on Bernheim’s ladder. Show me what you got. I worked alone, kept my head down, my mouth shut, took notes, pressed leaves, and soaked up as much of Buddy’s wisdom as I could.

One rainy day, two months into a particularly muggy summer, I realized I had begun to gain trust. Instead of sending me home for the rest of the day, Buddy invited me to his office and let me look through his garden library. We talked. A little. Our brief conversation felt like a commencement graduation. We kept in touch for years afterward.

Buddy Hubbuch had many friends and admirers

The gifted and generous horticulturist gave 34 years to Bernheim Forest & Arboretum. Buddy was free with advice or opinions for anyone who showed curiosity about plants or nature. He was an amateur naturalist, interested  in native plants, animals and geology. His son, Chuck, said, “When I was young, he brought home all sorts of insects, reptiles, birds, small mammals, interesting rocks and fossils.”

Few could match Buddy’s  infectious laugh or his handsome thick mane of silver hair.

Buddy never blew his horn.

Buddy and J.C. Raulston from North Carolina State University. Mike Hayman photo.

Early in one film segment, when I asked what his favorite tree was, Buddy responded, simply. “I love them all.” The answer was followed by a long pause. Brevity and humility, on camera, didn’t translate to an overwhelming enthusiasm for trees and shrubs. If you dug a little deeper, you’d find out he was obsessed with  hollies. He could go on for days.

“The holly collection became one of the country’s largest with over 400 hollies, including over two hundred different species and cultivars. It has deservedly attained a national and even international reputation for excellence. Buddy developed a new holly, Ilex x attenuata, ‘Marilyn’ a fine-textured evergreen holly with striking red-orange fruit that he named in honor of his wife.” Mathew London photo; bernheim.org

Plow on.

HGTV blew me off, and I am good with that. I suspect only insiders would understand Buddy’s quiet and significant historic significance anyway.

A sense of completion, relief, and joy finally settled over me when I emailed the short film piece a few days ago to a group of friends who knew Buddy. Some worked with him before launching their own careers.

I have watched the unedited, sometimes tedious, hour-long clip of Buddy Hubbuch’s retirement party a half-dozen times, and it has never failed to trigger nostalgic feelings and smiles.

What a wonderful man.

Plow on.

Here’s a YouTube link to the retirement party.

https://youtu.be/srRa3Zap_B8

When you get there, press CC for closed captions.