The online correspondence between Ranters Marianne Willburn (in Virginia) and Scott Beuerlein (in Ohio) began in July 2019 with Scott’s column ‘Time for a Grexit’ in Horticulture magazine which grumpily condemned British garden writers and their books. Marianne couldn’t let him get away with it; but chose to answer on GardenRant soil. Scott rebutted. Marianne rebutted his rebuttal, and Scott returned the punch.
Marianne answered with a letter.
What followed has been an edgy, informative, humorous and often intimate portrait of their gardens and lives in very different regions of the country. The letters aren’t managed or edited, and often, readers of GardenRant see them even before Scott or Marianne does.
It’s a gardeners’ correspondence for a digital age. You can find the entire collection of letters below. Enjoy!
Fear, Loathing, Capitulation, Relapses, A Cry for Help, and Another Empty Promise to Do Better; In a world of unfairness and charlatans, these are the real things!
Déjà vu all over again. In what is apparently becoming an abusive relationship, I again find myself the victim of Marianne Willburn’s poison pen, which, I now believe she nightly [...]
Garden regionally. Get inspired globally.
Somewhere near the bottom of every writer's artistic license, a clever wordsmith will find the following recommendation: Monty Don "Comically exaggerating the position of one's opponent is encouraged [...]
A Desperate Grasp at Redemption From One Struck Down by the Wrath of Marianne Willburn’s Poison Pen
Marianne looks harmless enough here. “There are peaches to be eaten warm from the brick of the wall they are grown against, peas picked off the tendrily plant [...]
Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd.
Beth Chatto's Gravel Garden built on the remains of an old car park gives hope to gardeners everywhere that matching the plant to one's conditions can spell success. [...]