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!
The SEO Garden: A Letter to the Midwest
June 26, 2020 Lovettsville, VA Dear Scott, Well, as your letter writing skills are obviously taking second place to your Facebook overshares, I thought I would pick up the baton [...]
Lingering Springs, Bittersweet Memories and The Evolution of a Gardener
May 14, 2020 Lovettsville, VA Dear Scott, My heart aches for you and your family coping with the loss of your mother. In a normal year it would be emotionally [...]
Plants and Pandemics, and Gardeners Go for the Glory!
April 29, 2020 Cincinnati, Ohio Dear Marianne, I apologize for taking so long to reply to your last letter, but it’s been a hell of a time. My mother’s health [...]
What does “Rural Metro DC Area” even mean?
The latest in the on-going correspondence between Marianne Willburn and Scott Beuerlein. 6 March 2020 Lovettsville, VA Dear Scott, I am grateful to digital correspondence in that I cannot catch [...]
The Wife, the Flu, and the Ecstasy of Entering a Gardening Dream State
Cincinnati, Ohio January 23, 2020 Dear Marianne, What a treat it was to receive your letter dated January 22nd. And so publicly too! What fun. Despite myself, I somehow got [...]
Winter Sun & Guilty Joy: A Letter to The Midwest
From the editor: Rant readers following the verbal sparring between our own Scott Beuerlein and guest ranter Marianne Willburn may be wondering if the daggers had been sheathed for good [...]
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. [...]