Scott Beuerlein

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Scott Beuerlein

Over twelve or fifteen years, Scott Beuerlein has published over 150 articles for several publications and online. Scott contributes a monthly blog and usually a Dear Gardener open letter to fellow Ranter, Marianne Wilburn, here on Garden Rant. For Horticulture Magazine, Scott writes the (hopefully) humorous and/or insightful Deep Roots column and also the Green Scene column in which he interviews some of the green industry’s top professionals. In 2019, Scott won two Gold Medals and a Silver Medal from Garden Communicators International, another Silver Medal in 2020, and then a third in 2022. 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 is married to Michele. They met at college and, truthfully, she could have done much better but, being a woman of integrity, she has kept her commitment now for 39 years. They are empty nesters living a pretty good life based on hard work, good food, and wine. A lot of wine, actually. Most of it consumed during the Friday Night Feasts Scott cooks up. Friday Feast is the most probable reason Michele has continued to stay with him for all that time. Their 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 OGIA 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

Grinding Out Another Horror Show Project in, Turns Out, My “Yew” Garden: A Letter From The Midwest.

By |2022-09-22T12:37:02-04:00July 20, 2022|

Part of why the project is so horrible is because much of the point of it is to take space that was already too full of  junk and make it capable of  holding even more junk. Junk had to be move out of the way, only to be in the way of the next task, and then the next.

Muddy March Gardens, Flagrant Power Tool Violations, Heresy, Arson, & More: A [Belated] Letter from The Midwest

By |2022-09-22T12:38:41-04:00April 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.  

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

By |2022-09-22T12:39:10-04:00February 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.

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. 

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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