REEL SOUTH

Hey, I'm Valerie June. Coming up on Reel South. -

Ryan

Every plant has a story, just like every human being has a story. The story needs to be told. -

Valerie

Among the South's abundant gardens, one man planted a masterful career. -

Man

He's a brilliant man. He really is. He's somewhere between brilliance and insanity. Hey! -

woman on phone

This is for what? The documentary on my life. This ain't Walt Disney. People say well is he your mentor? And I say, well, he was my TORmentor. I never met a person that was so demanding. If you haven't got big balls, you might as well get lost. 'Cause he'll cut them off. -

Valerie

A sharp tongue, a green thumb, and one fantabulous life. -

Ryan

Where lies the genius of man is the ability to control nature but for one purpose only, and that is to create beauty. -

Valerie

Dig into "The Well-Placed Weed." Coming up on Reel South.

laid-back blues music

musical vocalizing

"Man Done Wrong" by Valerie June

A garden without a spirit is like a human being without a soul. It just has no meaning. Every plant has a story, just like every human being has a story, and the story needs to be told. When our work here is done And the life's crown is won And our troubles and trials Are over All our sorrows will end And our voices will blend With the loved ones Who have gone on before Never grow old Never grow old In a land where we'll never grow old Never grow old Never grow old In a land where we'll never grow old

gentle music

-

Man

He was on the front end of the American curve as far as gardens, I mean, no one was at his level even close. We're in a constant struggle to keep it back and control it, because that is where lies the genius in man is the ability to control nature but for one purpose only, and that is to create beauty. This entire canopy in which I live is verdant oasis.

gentle music

Curtanis used to be classified as spruce. Cooper Sanchez and with him is his associate Steve Bransford and they've been working for four years on a documentary on my life. -

Woman On Phone

This is for what? The documentary on my life. Oh. This ain't Walt Disney. -

Man

All right, we're rolling. Is it left up to me to begin? -

Man

Sure. -

Ryan

What do you want me to talk about? What is the date? The 20th. - What? -

Man

August 20th. Oh, today is August the 20th, 2010. Today is what? Friday April the 16th. What is the date? It doesn't matter. I mean, I haven't had a calendar in 10 years and you want me to tell you the date? I think it's the 16th. -

Man

The 18th. Oh, see, it's the 18th of April. I don't know what year it is. 2023. -

Man

He had taken a trip to see Monet's garden, Giverny and he came back so inspired that he started gardening and he changed his entire garden and then his garden started to get notoriety and press and so people started hiring Ryan to design their gardens and install them and even though he didn't have a degree in that, was not a designer per se, completely self taught, which is just brilliant. -

Man

Driving to the city with Ryan, you know, he would know where these incredible trees were all throughout the city or where incredible shrubs were. -

Man

We would always be looking for plant material on the side of the road, and he'd always want to take the back roads which were always longer. We would find things on the side of the road. Bulbs, chrysanthemums, old garden flowers, particular species of something that had been lost. This wonderful aster is something I found. Found it growing in a ditch bank, and almost got shot at. I didn't think it was anybody's until the lady came out on the front porch and wanted to know what I was doing on her land, and I says oh, well nothing but by that time I had already gotten what I needed and it was behind my back and I cautiously walked to the car slightly backwards and ended up with my aster grandiflorus. So he proceeds to start digging 'em up. I said Ryan, I says Luther Burbank's garden is a public garden! He says I don't care, I've got to have some of those. So I'm going oh my god, I've been out in California for two days and I'm going to jail. And we got in the car and Ryan said, look what I got! He's pulling stuff out of his pockets. I would always be driving and he'd say keep the engine running and he'd jump out of the car and go rip up somebody's plant and hop in the car and we'd drive away, and then he'd say they don't deserve it. They don't even know what it is, and I said well you don't even know who lived there, Ryan, and he goes yeah but they don't know what they've got. I pulled into the library driveway, pulled off aside the way, and without a shovel, I dug 'em up with my hands and brought 'em home and they both lived. I have a great sense of nostalgia and an affinity for maintaining my family history. One time I went up there and her sons all sort of live very close, but they would all gather around this pot belly stove. They dipped. And they were all on little handmade wooden chairs with cane cow bottom hide. They were all tethered, leaning back like that, suspended, and when I walked in the room they all leaned forward and said look, it's Peewee, it's Ruth's son. Peewee was the only name I ever had until I went to high school. And then I became Jennings and then when I got in the Navy I became Ryan. -

Man

Can you imagine Ryan on a boat in the Navy? I mean that's the part of his past that I've found the most hard to kind of reconcile. This is my grandfather, that's his hair. That's my grandmother, and that's her hair. -

Man

If you're around Ryan for any amount of time, you'll certainly hear Ryan discuss where he came from. What's very important to me, as a designer, is my origin which is pretty much encapsulated inside of this box. And he did a cutout of the state of South Carolina that holds a lot of my memories from my hometown. In this little compartment, my high school ring. And over here, it houses a photograph of my father as a young boy, and my mother. -

Man

Ryan has been waxing sort of nostalgic about his past recently. The past couple of years, and he's done a lot of shadow boxes of various aspects of his life. It also houses all the letters that my mother wrote to my father during World War II. Me and my brothers, myself, my youngest brother, my sister, and my father.

gentle folk music

But I'm a native South Carolinian. We had no indoor plumbing. It was my mother and three of us, one year and two months apart. We lived on the main road and everybody else lived in what used to be a cotton field, and in the field next to it is where we all worked. Two of my brothers, maybe my sister, myself, my mother and father picked cotton in those fields, and we got paid a whomping 15 cents a pound. And he loves the fact that he came from, quite frankly, a very poor upbringing. He's not ashamed of that at all. He's very proud of that, as a matter of fact, and I respect Ryan for that. I mean I think that's because he's a hell of a hardworking man and he got that growing up that way. 'Cause when I grew up, I didn't have no help. I was the help. You know my gardening career started in my community, taught me how to root camellias under the eave of a barn by placing a Mason jar on top of it to create like a little terrarium or incubator so they would hold the moisture and root easier. By the time I was seven, I was already infatuated with propagation. You think I have enough camellias? -

Man

I do. -

Ryan

We just planted another one yesterday. I found one called Moonlight Sonata. -

Man

I gave you that one. -

Ryan

No you gave me Moonlight Bay. -

Man

No sir. -

Ryan

You want to go see if we can find it? -

Man

Yeah. -

Ryan

What does that say? Is it fast sonata? -

Man

Yep, that's sonata. Good. All my camellias, they're all labeled. So when I'm not here anymore, they can still be identified. Camellias, they're beautiful. When they start to deteriorate and return brown and buds, I go around discarding them and I'll pick off every yellow leaf off a camellia and every dead bud. You know how long I've been raking? Since I was a child. I learned to rake from my father. He grew up in a dirt yard, and he would start on one side, rake all the way across in three foot depth, then get out there and come back and do it again, again, and again, and we weren't allowed to walk on it for three days 'cause he didn't want to have footprints messing up his patterns. Now you wonder why I'm odd. Well he was a Virgo like me. We had no grass. We had chinaberry trees and dirt, but it was tidy. We would use the green chinaberries with slingshots for ammunition. In grammar school, we had a very creative teacher that taught the sixth grade, and she just decided one day everybody was to bring chinaberries and she brought in hot plates and we boiled chinaberries. We dyed them with rinse dyes, different colors, and strung 'em and we made necklaces for our mothers for Christmas presents. And made necklaces for our mothers for Christmas. And I've heard that story so many times on how he dyes the berries and makes jewelry. Yeah, yeah! - Yeah.

laughs

And about six months ago, I collected my own again, boiled 'em, and started making my own jewelry with turquoise beads, and chinaberry seed. And I have different pendants hang on 'em. One of 'em is the bone from a raccoon's penis that belonged to my grandfather who used it as a toothpick. And botanically it's Melia azedarach, which also happens to be one of Thomas Jefferson's favorite trees. And now it's a weed tree all over the South. It is to trees in the South like kudzu is to vines, but they grow fast and they make a wonderful shade. So I have a chinaberry tree next door. So I just am gonna maintain this relationship.

soothing music

You know what Cooper, this is probably one of the prettiest colors of red in the world. Malvaviscus, you know that came out of my great grandmother's garden. This is rose Aunt Marie, came out of my Aunt Marie's garden. He's feeling like people are losing touch with these things, all these new proven winners are coming out and, but they're leaving behind what we would call grandmother plants. -

Woman

You know my Aunt Marie grew this camellia, or this rose, and this is why it matters to me. They've started becoming living memorial to my relationship with my family. The whole point is that all these relationships are very important to me, and I won't, by me saving seed and saving plants, I'm able to keep all these members of these people that have influenced my life. It's a constant integration of who I am now, and what I am probably more devoted to than my present self is my past. He grew up in a family that had great integrity, and values, and he carries those values right now, right throughout his life. You think my great great grandmother and her people would know me? Do you think they would invite me in and say he's one of us? Of all the hurt, which I don't speak about very often. I was a queer. What it must cost my father and my mother, and my other people, being who I am. They stood up and said well you know, it's only Peewee. It's Ruth's son. I cannot change it. Because I've become myself. I have no hate. I was, in my opinion, forcefully induced into becoming a Christian so I had to be baptized. So I said okay. It's an act, and I'm a good actor, so I performed, went through the ritual. When the preacher dunked me under the water, I said I'm getting my revenge and he held me down and I said you holding me down a bit too long. I pinched him on the nuts, and he let me up. You know, Jesus thank you for doing it but I've had a good time being myself. It's why I really admire him so much because he's got balls. Just goes in and whatever it is, and goes for it.

birds chirping

The grumpy one is Leo, who is named after one of my uncles. Cecil, where have you been? Here I think you might need to wear that for a while, a little saddle. 'Cause you don't look too purty.

dogs bark

So this is Crackerjack, Soda Pop, Popcorn, Leo, and Cecil. -

Man

And that was kind of like Ryan's immediate family, I would say is his dogs. Get off this table.

dogs bark

Hey! No, that's ugly. Hey!

dogs bark

Damn greased lightning. Mama! Mama, good that's perfect. What are y'all doing? Hey. He picks up dog poop with his hands. You may want to cut that.

gentle guitar music

I know what I'm doing.

phone rings

Hello? - Hey Sam. -

Sam

Hey Ryan. Hey, how you doing? Ryan Gainey. -

Man

Hold on one second. Hello? - Hello! -

Woman

Hi. God, but I thought we'd call you first. -

Man

Oh I appreciate it. And I keep telling him your mailbox is full, it's me. He says I know it's you. That's why I don't answer it.

audience laughs

I wouldn't hang it up, but I'd put it on the bed every once in a while and go yeah, you're the best, yeah uh-huh. Oh you're there. Nobody in the entire universe will ever be there when you and I solve that dessert. Oh honey-- - Done for us. I just pretty much don't want to talk to him when he's like that, 'cause it's a waste of my time and his time 'cause he ain't gonna make any sense and he's gonna disagree with anything I say. Now Cooper wants to know what do you really think about me? That's not very nice.

beep

He was truly

beep

. We shouldn't cut him any slack. For some people, Ryan is just an unmitigated

beep

, you know, a disaster. I had a lady come into my shop in Birmingham. Somehow Ryan's name came up and she got very like, she was like he, he came to my garden and he made me cry. She almost started weeping, and the door was slammed. She was dismissed. You know I ride around and I see what people have done to their front yards and they let it go, and I think well, why did you do that? I wish you had not even started. And she said but in the office where I work I see this, and I said well that's not very attractive. It was a cement tennis court, and I said well, you need to get rid of it. And I can tell he realizes some things that he's done, and tries to make amends, but that's just not Ryan. You know that would be, he has a certain persona he's got to, you've got to present you know, I guess. Yes I am Ryan Gainey.

audience laughs

He doesn't seem to really care about reality in a lot of ways. Meschach, Shadrach and Abednego had a gay brother which is me, was called Richrach and I came over here with the lost tribes of Israel, and I moved to Florida and I am the missionary who taught those Seminole Indians how to decorate their clothes with Richrach. Obviously when I was in Sunday school I wasn't thinking too much about telling the truth. Even if I did make it up, who cares? It's a good story. - It is, it's a great story. If you lie, make it amusing. Had a wild life, haven't I? You sure have. You know why? - Why? 'Cause I created it. -

Man

And he's attached to his persona that's he's created. I'm unwilling to adapt to these modern times. No computer, no microwave. No blender, no Cuisinart. And no Lacoste shirts. Since I don't have a computer, I have to rely upon the ability just to read. However I do cheat. If I can't find something, I call somebody who has one and let them look it up. But I never tell anybody that I did it. I always want them to think that I still live in this 1905 house and live a very rural lifestyle. He lives simply, and yet his life is complex as any I think I've ever known. I come from a family from the country, and they had a most delightful twang. That country twang which my father's people had which unfortunately I worked very hard training myself not to talk like that, but I wish I could. But now I've become country. -

Man

You don't dress like that anymore? -

Ryan

I still look like that, but I just don't dress like that. I dress more ordinary. Why is he creating so many different personas? Why is he creating this image, and you know the answer is he's a shy person at the end and I think he's putting up somebody for people to spend time with rather than his inner self. Ryan wants to let the world into the person he's created, just like the gardens he has. He creates them, and they're a fantasy world. Well his whole life is a fantasy.

dramatic music

That's what people miss out on when they don't imbibe all these romantic nuances, that they lose the power of a garden, a spirit, which makes it magical.

gentle guitar music

I came to Atlanta literally with a penny in my pocket. So I started my first shop. So these are early materials from his first store, The Potted Plant. They opened May 6, 1973. This shop was fabulous. I mean, I miss it. -

Man

Ryan was a god in Buckhead. I could sell somebody an empty pot full of dirt and tell 'em there's a plant in it and they would believe me. -

Man

His business was really successful and that's not just because he's a creative, artistic. There are plenty of artistic people that couldn't operate a business the way he did. And he's like the James Brown of the garden world. I mean, he's the hardest working man on the field, and he just didn't stop. -

Man

Out of The Potted Plant grew the Connoisseur's Garden and then out of the Connoisseur's Garden, and all these parties and weddings grew The Cottage Garden which did flowers and things of that sort, and he had to hire all these wonderfully creative people to work in these three entities. Many of the people who worked for Ryan all went on to start their own businesses and be very successful. I used to think Ryan was lucky to have all these people that worked for him, but I don't think it was luck. I think it was people gravitated towards Ryan that were good. All these great gardeners pay enormous homage to his abilities, above all his generosity. His generosity has no bounds. He's a big chunk of something wonderful in my life.

soothing music

The way he uses the word home is so evocative. It's not just home, it's a foundation stone. It's everything you've built, and it all comes into that word and the way you express it is just, it's so beautiful. -

Man

Obviously Ryan was drawn to this quaint little cottage down on Emerson Avenue in Decatur. I'm sure drawn to the fact that it was a good looking little bungalow, but he also liked the fact that it was a facility for growing cut flowers back in the day, and it had a series of hot houses or greenhouses. He realized that he didn't need seven or eighth working greenhouses, and probably some of 'em were in disrepair from years of neglect. He'd take the glass away and the frame, but would leave these beautiful, aged brick walls that acted as the foundation to the greenhouses. So automatically he had garden rooms. When I came here, it didn't look like this at all. But I was inspired by the idea of a painting of a little tiny house sitting in a setting with picket fences and arbors and vines and window boxes. Things spilling over. Sweet peas, nasturtiums, petunias, poppies, zinnias.

soothing music

I learned a lot from Ms. Verey, and she taught me a lot about companion plants, and the difference between bedding in and bedding out. Letting things grow as they do. Let 'em just come up and be. Mrs. Verey was one of the most important late 20th Century English garden designers and internationally famous and Ryan and Mrs. Verey were good, close friends. Mrs. Verey saw that he was starting something new, and exciting that was needed in American gardening.

soothing music

-

Man

Ryan's first designs were known for being very cottage garden, but as we got a lot of commissions in Buckhead and in North Atlanta and East Coast and East Hampton and France, they became more classical in design, and you can never go wrong with a classical design. We do a lot of clipped things that are very formed and trained, but at the same time we have a lot of plant material that we work with that is very free form. I mean one of his favorite plants is a camellia japonica. I mean it's a very free flowing element. There's no structure to it. It's very natural. -

Man

He had a way of trying to make things look spontaneous, but they were planned. I have no reason to compete. I don't even compete with myself. I don't have to outdo me. I don't have to outdo what anybody, I don't have to win. All I have to do is take my knowledge, channel it, and use it, and be creative. The only credit I've ever given myself was to realize I was in the presence of a genius, and so I said yes, we'll do what you say. And at that point, we just put our garden in our yard and the whole caboodle here into Ryan's hands and we've never regretted it a minute. I mean what he has created has just been fantastic. I can't tell you the amount of joy it has brought us on a daily, hourly basis. Having other people create their own sense of an individual paradise.

birds chirping

You see what I mean? Look at that. See how green it is? It's not so much to smell it, it's to be consumed by it.

gentle guitar music

You're looking through this purplish bloodgood maple, and you look in the background you have to see it from way back here. You see the combination of that with this golden dawn redwood down here. So all these things I'm talking about are very subtle. And you may get into trouble if you start forcing these things together because it becomes too obvious and looks contrived. I don't think I've ever known anybody that paid attention to detail quite like he does, and I think that's a lost art. And I'm sorry that there are not more people like him. Oh dear, what is it? Oh it's a wonderful, beautiful bug. Was that on a leaf? He's probably in your scrapbook, left over from the party. Probably. All these years I've done the Garden of Eden Ball and the Swan House Ball and everything else, and all the parties for these, and I only did it for one reason only, so I could dress up. I had all my clothes made, my hats made, my glass beaded hats, my costumes 'cause you know, in my opinion all life is a theater, sort of like Shakespeare. Why not strut and fret? In the world of birds, for instance, it is the male that is the most decorated and adorned creature with all those feathers. -

Man

Lord help you if you went to an event. It was over the top. He'd have on a duster or a hat. A couple of years ago we went out to a party called the Magic of the Mage and I decided to become a peacock. Great big peacock explosion on his forehead. Oh, now you have a visual. How do I look? Well not like me. - Oh. -

Man

He's a brilliant man, he really is. He's somewhere between brilliance and insanity. Doo dah, doo dah day. -

Man

You just never knew what would come out of that man's mouth. You've gotta have balls around Ryan. Big balls. If you haven't got big balls, you might as well get lost, 'cause he'll cut them off. He'll try! But he makes-- - No. Barrels. People say well is he your mentor? And I say well he was my TORmentor. He was very demanding, just extremely. I've never met a person that was so demanding. Nope, I gotta have this. Nope, I don't care where you get it, get it. I don't care how much it costs, but this is all I'm gonna pay for it. You know, that type of thing. Ryan liked being told off. He liked being set straight, and few people could do it. Only the people that loved him could ever do it. -

Interviewer

What do you think has sustained your friendship through all these years? My patience.

chuckles

Yeah, yeah. -

Interviewer

What do you think is so different about Ryan that's helped him be who he is? -

Mary

I think it's his ego. His ego and the need to be noticed and appreciated. And rightly so.

audience applauds

Right? - You did a great job. One of the matrons stepped out of line and came over to me and lifted up my boa and said what race did you just win? I said the freakness.

audience laughs

If he didn't have that self-awareness of how ridiculous he can be, he wouldn't be any fun, but what's so fun about him is he's got an incredible self-awareness of just how absurd he is, and he loves absurdity. I love this about Ryan, because he didn't care. He just was free, tambourine. You doing that and I'm doing this and I'm doing this all around you doing that and here we all... Free spirit. A real free spirit. Not a free spirit trying to be a free spirit, but a real free spirit. And there is Mr. Gainey in all his finery with all his fans around him signing autographs for his latest book, and I took one look at him and I thought I'd really like to know this guy. He got up and he said, I just want to get something straight from the beginning. If it weren't for a little charm and romance in this life, it wouldn't be worth living and I mean from that minute he had the whole audience just hypnotized. He gave a wonderful lecture. I couldn't tell you a word he said, but it was just, I mean it was just magic. -

Man

The people love him, man. You see it, they love him. They do. What stuff?

crowd murmuring

I've taken my artistic capabilities and become successful, and I know how to make money and I know how to have other people make money. -

Man

Because he's got to have that bag of gold. You know, that comes from growing up poor, picking cotton, and struggling. You've seen his hands. You know those are cotton picking hands. He loves those cotton picking hands of his.

pleasant music

-

Man

He had been selected for a special, it was Great Gardens of the World, and it was narrated by Audrey Hepburn, and I remember they came to his house to film it, but I wasn't allowed to go over there and he got to meet Audrey Hepburn and. -

Narrator

Garden designer Ryan Gainey created here in Decatur, Georgia an intimate environment that like all cottage gardens, is a unique reflection of personality. This idea of creating a romantic garden finds its heart in one of the most beloved garden styles that there is, and that is the cottage garden and part of that garden was choosing all the plants from part of my childhood, places I've been, things that I liked that wanted to have for myself. Keep all those ideas intact. Every single time I've been over there I completely just get blown away. It's like I go there for the first time. Can't describe it to people until they go over there, and they're around that.

birds chirping

This is the bane of my existence, this stuff. That gold bamboo? Arundinaria. It's pretty, but we just cut it to the ground every year and have it foliage. I think it's great, but I'm surprised that you let a bamboo go. You can't stop it now, but-- It's not a bamboo, it's arundinaria. Is it in the family? - I guess. But you know, it makes a good ground cover. Yeah it does. - It don't bother me. People define a weed as a plant out of place, but a well placed weed is, knowing which weeds will grow in your garden, and you want to avoid anything that's invasive, as so many of them are. You can buy plants and put 'em where you want 'em to grow, but to me it's more wonderful for them to come up where they want to come up. To me they sort of create the magic of the garden.

soothing music

Gardening and gardening style is about adaptation. You can't run over to the Cotswolds to Mrs. Verey's garden and say I can do this, I can do that. You've gotta figure it out. If you're trying to combine colors, you gotta find that when they bloom together, but we're in such completely different climate, so you gotta keep your eyes open. I spent five seasons trying to get delphinium to do, and then they'd bloom and they really looked out of place. We cannot grow an English garden in America, but we can grow an English style garden, because we have to grow what works for us. If you wanna go all native, that's fine, but it would be incomplete unless you mixed Chinese or Japanese plants with our native plants, and that just takes these plant spectrum and it expands it a thousand fold. None of us are native. What are we native to?

birds chirping

Can I quit talking now? Melia. - Melia. Azedarach. - Azedarach. The importance of plant identification and botanical Latin still remains with me today because I'm very insistent about using the genus and species when talking about plants as opposed to just common names. I'm looking up the correct pronunciation of the botanical name of nasturtium which is in bloom behind me. It's nasturtium officinales, which is watercress. Maclura pomifera. Spiraea vanhouttei. Old China rose, rosa chinensis oclandia. Metasequoia glyptostroboides which is a golden dawn redwood. That's campanula pocaerski. Ryan as anyone knows has been around and does not like to refer to the common names of plants. Ryan will only give you the Latin name, and where this is particularly pronounced is when you're out with him and somebody's calling something by a common name, Ryan won't use it just to be kind of a snob about it. He'll just insist upon using the Latin, the Linnaean name classification for something just to sort of alienate the person he's with that wants to call it a friggin' daisy you know? Ryan won't let you do that. You just need to know if they come here, it's gonna be Latin and don't ask me a question unless you have a piece of paper and a pencil and go write it down. They're pelegorium but this is the true geranium. I don't know what that flowering thing is. I've learned a great deal about understanding Latin, which so many people say oh, please don't talk to me that way using those words. You sound so smart. Well the thing is there's nothing wrong with being smart about growing your plants. I went to the market bulletin, where people sell seed through the mail, and I sent a letter. And I sent five dollars, and I got this back in the mail. Five little handmade packages of petunia seed wrapped up in wax paper and sealed with masking tape with some carefully written instructions on how to plant 'em. If this woman did not do this, I wouldn't have the petunia seed to grow the plants that I grew up with as a child growing in country yards. He'd rather be called a plantsman than a gardener. I mean, he knew and understood and loved the plants themselves. And I press a lot of ginkgos which is one of the most ancient plants on the face of the earth. And I have a beautiful one in my garden, but one of the largest ones I've ever seen is on the grounds of the Woodruff Art Center between the Woodruff Art Center and the High Museum of Art, and every fall I used to go up there and collect bags of leaves, sit a bag of leaves on the passenger seat in my car, roll my window down, and just grab handfuls of leaves and ride all over town just throwing ginkgo leaves out, like a wonderful cloud of gold. I've made a new garden much simpler. Not trying to have one of everything like I have in Decatur. This is how we go to what we call work every day. Through Rick's meadow. Through his fields of clover, his dandelions, wild species of geraniums, oenothera. We sneak in, we come in through the back door. Then I've already accumulated a very wonderful camellia japonica collection. The latest one that I have, which we will plant today is camellia japonica Ryan Gainey, which I found in an old garden and I'm going to have the honor of planting the first Ryan Gainey camellia japonica ever planted in the history of gardening in America. And I'm one of those fastidious people about neatness, so I'm gonna rake it all back together and get some, these water oak leaves to sprinkle around it so nobody won't know I just planted it. So there we have just planted the first camellia japonica Ryan Gainey in the history of gardening in America. And the next most important thing is to make sure you water it in well, so I will water it in well and we'll, it'll start growing. So in about four years it'll be four or five feet tall and in the spring I'll sit on the porch and watch myself bloom. It's sort of metaphorically it's really sorta putting Ryan Gainey back in the dirt again. Digging and planting myself. But the nice thing about it is, it's not my demise. It's a celebration of my entire life.

gentle music

rain pattering

It's just, your tree has just fallen on your house and it can fall in five seconds, another floor and you'll be crushed to death. I said I'm not going anywhere without my dogs, and my jewelry. I think emotionally and spiritually I've been devastated.

rain patters

crane whirs, beeps

I'll go back home again. It will turn out to be a total act of rejuvenating my spirit and giving me new impetus to take the old, and not start all over, but simply like a garden periodically rearrange it because you cannot make it perfect the first time. You gotta realize you're putting it in the wrong place, and you move it 'til you get it in the right place. So it's the same thing as what I'm gonna have to do with my house. I miss, I miss the material things. And I know that they may have some monetary value, but that's not what I'm talking about. All these inanimate objects or possessions of mine are the things that grow in the heart of my house, and the heart of my garden and the heart of my house is sacred to me. My mother gave me her copy of this book, which is called A Garden of Remembrance by James Terry White, and it's been very influential to me. And the funny thing about it is I remembered all these years this wonderful thing. The glow is fading from the western sky, and one by one my comrades as of yore have given up their play and said goodbye. There isn't anyone to play with anymore. I miss the tender hand clasp of old friends. The kisses of the loved ones gone before. 'Tis lonely when the heart first comprehends there isn't anyone to play with anymore. They were the last words of Mark Twain. Come on Baby Ruth. Sit! Sit, down! Good girl. Do you know where she went? I'm not leaving. - You're not? You're gonna stay right here? I'm gonna disperse myself into a thousand motes. Do you know what a mote is? M-O-T-E. A fleck of dust, and I'm gonna float for eternity, and infiltrate any human being that has the consciousness to look out into the world and see me floating by and wanting to absorb the reality of who I was. My knowledge is what will be dispersed, so I ain't going nowhere. 'Cause once you become a part of the memory of a human being, as long as that person is alive, the memory is alive because memory is possession.

gentle guitar music

I shall not oh I shall not be moved I shall not oh, I shall not be moved And like a tree planted by the water I shall not be moved On my way to heaven I shall not be moved On my way to heaven I shall not be moved And like a tree planted by the water I shall not be moved Saints of God and my journey I shall not be moved Saints of God and my journey I shall not be moved And like a tree planted by the water I shall not be moved

laid-back blues music

"Man Done Wrong" by Valerie June