Garden Provocatuer Tony Avent Weighs In

Just to show we're not the only ones following the Heronswood closing, the newest Plant Delights catalogue has just come out and its cover - always a showcase for outrageous horticultural commentary - highlights the event with this cartoon entitled "The Day the Gardeners Cried." Click this one to enlarge.

Immediately someone alerted the Garden Writers Listserv to the cartoon and started quite a little dust-up with this thought: "About Plant Delights catalog cover, I do think the previous owners should be right up there riding the rig with George Ball. I suspect that there are many stories of hort-greed in our circumscribed worlds with more than enough guilt to go around."  Whoa, blaming Dan Hinkley?

A lively discussion followed, with most contributors defending Heronswood's owners and others criticizing the mischievous Tony Avent of Plant Delights, asserting that with this cover he'd "gone too far." Most commenters defended his right to be outrageous - Lord knows we here at the Rant agree - and here's my favorite retort to the would-be Tony-muzzler:

Isn't it healthy and entertaining when people shake things up now and then?  We loved the Heronswood catalog because instead of dry plant descriptions Dan included his opinions, side remarks, and snippets of his life.  Avent can be counted on to deliver his never-to-be-humble opinions along with the flora... I say it's all for the better, and makes for a richer world.  C.L. Fornari of www.gardenlady.com

Comments

[Paul]

As an East Coast person, I'm happy that Heronswood moved out this way. It's allowed for me to go to the East Coast opens now. The last one was very good. Nice article here talks about the last one. Picked up some nice hellebores.

http://www.mcall.com/features/custom/hg/garden/nurseries/all-gardenstopshops0427.5817119apr27,0,2361228.story

Future Opens
http://www.heronswood.com/openevents.asp

[Andrew]

The above comment by user 'Paul' was mass-spammed to dozens of gardening-related blogs by a Burpee employee with the IP 69.248.162.148 in Pennsylvania. It is a rather shoddy example of astroturfing in an attempt to simulate support for Burpee's actions. You can verify this with the following google search:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22I%27m+happy+that+Heronswood+moved+out+this+way%22&filter=0

Thanks for your opinion, 'Paul'.