Any botanical garden worth a nickle handles the standard variety of perennials, roses, and shrubs well, and the Atlanta Botanical Garden is no different. Thus, our visit reportage focuses on those qualities that elevate the Atlanta Botanical Garden. If you’re in Atlanta and manage to survive the interstates, the Atlanta Botanical Garden is nestled downtown, which is a hop, skip, and a jump from the Atlanta High Museum of Art and not too far from the Georgia Aquarium. Compared to the Georgia Botanical Garden and the Chicago Botanic Garden (note: botanic in Chicago, not botanical), the Atlanta Botanical Garden is fairly smallish, but…it packs a punch, and further, the Atlanta Botanical Garden most definitely caters to children. There is a children’s garden, in which all manner of childsplay (splashing in fountains, screaming, running - and that’s the parents) is on display.

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I know it’s unseemly to go around awarding oneself your own award, but in this case, the Snidely Whiplash Award, awarded to the villains of the garden world, is just desserts. What have I done to deserve this award you may ask? (Many things, but we’re not here to talk about the debauchery and carrying on). I penned one of my most infamous posts, The Axis of Evil: American Rose Society, All-America Rose Selections, Jackson and Perkins, and for the most part I stand by it…but I’m afraid that we may only have a ‘duo of evil’; if one takes a look at the record of the All-America Rose Selections Committee it’s pretty obvious they’ve done good things in recent years. Specifically, the AARS honored some incredible roses by hybridizer Tom Carruth, notably Hot Cocoa, Strike It Rich, Scentimental. Secondly, and perhaps most impressively the AARS had the boldness to award Knockout roses, Pink Knockout roses, and Rainbow Knockout roses all with AARS designations. Frankly, it took some courage to nominate a hot pink rose, but it was the right choice, as disease resistance is excellent. AARS, you have my apologies (although it doesn’t let you off for the some of the loser roses you honored in the preceding half century). I’ll treasure this award forever.

I want to be a lion or a bear. Sigh. Anyways, go on over to this garden is illegal to find out what kind of flower you are (and don’t come cryin’ to me when you find out you’re a pansy instead of some cool plant like a purple coneflower or Knockout rose or Mediterranean Spurge.

One day, not long ago, my daughter Flynne asked me if I knew how the moon got its name. No, I said, and she replied, then let me tell ya. Well, if your children have something to say then you listen. Thus, the story of how the moon got its name… Many years ago, before humans, Earth was ruled by cows…

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Floribunda rose Hot Cocoa is, simply put, one of the most beautiful roses ever. Compared to the beauty of Hot Cocoa in full-bloomed glory, many roses are merely pretenders. Some readers have taken exception to my general coolness to Hybrid Tea and Floribunda roses, and that’s perfectly okay by me. One must remember (note to self) that there is a reason roses stir such passion, and as a rose, Hot Cocoa is staggeringly beautiful. Stunning. Smoldering. Hit me in the chest, take my breath away, can’t think or speak, just as if I laid eyes the first time on a beautiful woman. It happens so rarely, but when the stars align, love truly can be at first sight.

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You’re making a big mistake, fellas.
You said you’d say that.
I’m not Tyler Durden!
You told us you’d say that, too.
All right, I am Tyler Durden. Listen to me, I’m giving you a direct order: we’re aborting this mission right now.
You said you would definitely say that.

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So I was sitting around planning my latest bit of debauchery - I can’t go into too much detail but I can say that it involves scarecrows and snorkels and no bunny rabbits this time. Anyways, I stumbled, yes stumbled across the shiny depravity of the Faux Whore, Magdelyne Swallows. And I’m all like ‘what the hell?’ Sometimes in life we have to pay tribute to the audacity, the boldness, the courage that we find around us.

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When I was 22 or so, I read the following essay by Aldo Leopold. It stuck with me through the years and has shaped me as a man. Thoreau and Leopold warn us about losing a part of ourselves. I give you “Thinking Like a Mountain” by Aldo Leopold…

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I just finished my annual cross-country trip (see Two Turntables and a Microphone). On these trips I drive the smallest roads I can find just thinking mostly. Well, looking and thinking. On this past trip, I went to Memphis specifically to drop in on Elvis over at Graceland. I figured it was time and that he might be wondering where I’d been and how things have turned out since we last saw each other. I was shocked he hadn’t changed the decor since the last time I was over - that shag carpet is so out it’s in again. Also, you should know that those photos of him as a great big fatso aren’t really fair. Elvis has a bit of a pudgy face but if you see the cut of his clothes (again, Elvis, update the wardrobe…it’s all so 1977), he’s still fairly svelte. What led me to share all of this (and more) with you was my discovery of another iconic figure from the South, the mysterious shadow known as Sue Woo.

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Hybrid Tea rose Elina is our example for today as we ferret out the true meaning behind the carefully-worded descriptions our friendly garden retailers use when describing a rose. Elina is admittedly a stunning Hybrid Tea rose that has quite a bit of virtue; thus, it is not my intention to castigate the fair Elina nor the retailers who sell this rose, but merely to read between the lines. Let’s get right to it. Heirloom Roses describes Elina’s growth habit as: “An upright plant with glossy, deep green foliage….” Translation: A stiff plant that will not play well with her fellow garden plants. From a design standpoint, Hybrid Tea roses in general do not integrate well into the garden. Thus, anytime you find a rose described as ‘upright’ or ‘formal’ beware. You should be prepared to send the prissy fellow to timeout, preferably in a dedicated rose bed in a distant part of the garden.

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