Scott Beuerlein

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Scott Beuerlein
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Over twelve or fifteen years, Scott Beuerlein has published over 150 articles for several publications and online. In addition to a monthly blog and usually an open letter to fellow Ranter, Marianne Wilburn, here on Garden Rant, Scott writes the (hopefully) humorous Deep Roots column and also the Green Scene interview column for every issue of Horticulture Magazine. In 2019, Scott won two Gold Medals from Garden Communicators International, and, in 2020, he won a Silver Medal. None of this has made him rich.

Scott’s day job is Manager of Botanical Garden Outreach at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Scott is Chair of the Boone County Arboretum Collections Committee, past Chair of Taking Root, past President of the Cincinnati Flower Growers Association, and Past President of the Northern Kentucky Urban and Community Forestry Council. None of this has made him rich, either.

Scott has been married to Michele now for 36 years, a woman way above his pay grade. It took him far too long to realize that, but he does now. Scott and Michele are empty nesters living a pretty good life based on hard work, good food, and wine. Lots of wine. The garden is best described as over-sized and under-maintained, which, actually, is also a pretty fair description of Scott.

Scott graduated with a BA in Communication Arts from Xavier University. As a self taught, late to the party, second career horticulturist, Scott is proud of being an ONLA Certified Landscape Technician and an ISA Certified Arborist, and has defeated the efforts of both organizations to expel him from their ranks in court.

Articles by Scott Beuerlein

Muddy March Gardens, Flagrant Power Tool Violations, Heresy, Arson, & More (Another {Belated} Letter to Lovettsville)

By |2022-04-25T22:28:18-04:00April 24, 2022|

After returning home, I went into a power tool-fired, panic-driven, spring cleanup, trying desperately to wipe ugly out of my garden but, truth is, only some of what I did made anything look even slightly better. The real cure for March is April, and the cure for April is May. Anyway, I went into a string-trimming frenzy, slashing back sedges, grasses, perennials and slinging dirt, sticks, gravel, plant labels, cigarette butts, beer cans, and whatever else all over creation anywhere I went. I consider myself kind of a performance artist when it comes to using a string trimmer. And a pretty innovative one at that. A lot of what I do with it would show up very prominently in the DO NOT section of the operating manual if manual writers had anything like the imagination I've got.  

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 13

Confronting Humor and a Lack of it from Every Angle: A Letter from the Midwest

By |2022-02-17T15:45:20-05:00February 16, 2022|

And dark and mysterious people like me hate being called “affable.” In fact, even affable people even hate being called “affable.” Which, I’m certain you knew. And why you said it. And, guess what, I forgive you. Yes, I forgive you. Because sometimes you’re a good person.

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 14

Twenty Overused Plants

By |2021-12-27T00:25:31-05:00December 26, 2021|

Boxwoods: The plant you turn to when you’re out of other desperate and have no other options. Maybe in the next life there will be another choice for deer-proof, shade tolerant, evergreen, can grow anywhere, can be shaped like anything, smells like cat pee. 

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 62

Tripling Down on Zinnias

By |2021-11-19T08:34:03-05:00November 17, 2021|

So let's be more careful about labeling plants our grandparents grew as old-fashioned because, let's face it, Rick Danko was way the hell cooler than Taylor Swift and your grandmother was way the hell cooler than you. In fact, there's no possible way that the world's coolest millennial, or GenXer, or GenYer, or BroodXer, or whatever is even half as cool as the least cool person at Woodstock. If you exclude all the members of Sha Na Na.  So don't give me no shit about Zinnias being old-fashioned. You should be so lucky to be that kind of old-fashioned.  

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 53

On Wild Mushrooms, Bears, and Teenage Girls

By |2021-06-29T12:10:28-04:00June 28, 2021|

If you insist on traipsing around in the hollers of Virginia like Lewis and Clark, out there randomly meandering about along with all the various drug runners, moonshiners, and village psychopaths. Making yourself subject to the mood, hunger, and whims of every snake, spider, bear, and cougar loose in the woods. Completely vulnerable to things like quicksand, booby traps, landmines, and God knows whatever else, then at least be smart. Bring a teenage girl with you! Which, in fact, is what Lewis and Clark did. They knew. 

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 5

Brood X Cicada Observations, Unenlightened and Free of the Usual Facts

By |2021-10-29T08:11:12-04:00June 16, 2021|

This won't be one of those cutesy, fawning posts that all the shiny, happy cool kids seem to be writing on Facebook and in blogs all over the Western world. And don’t expect any facts either--just observations. My observations, and, yes, I fully admit that I'm nothing more than a very tired and intellectually lazy horticulturist who is living under a dome of cicadas for the fourth time.

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