Garden Confidential, Vol. 4: The $64 Tomato, the Boxwood Default, and the Case for the Professional Gardener
By Steve Mydelski, Natchez Glen House
In 2006, William Alexander published a book called The $64 Tomato. If you haven’t read it, the title tells the story. It’s a memoir about his well-meaning but spiraling attempt to build the perfect backyard vegetable garden—custom fencing, raised beds, soil amendments, pest control, irrigation—all of it, in pursuit of tomatoes. But when he added up the receipts, each tomato he harvested cost $64.
It’s a funny book. It’s also painfully familiar.
Nearly twenty years later, I see it playing out in real time, every season: homeowners set out to “build a garden.” They go to the big box store or local garden center, fill a cart with plants, maybe a roll of landscape fabric, some mulch, a trowel. They come home, dig some holes, and put everything in the ground. And for a brief moment, it’s exciting. There are blooms. There’s progress. There’s something happening.
But by mid-summer, they’re overwhelmed. The weeds are winning. The plants aren’t growing the way they hoped. The soil seems tired, or soggy, or dry—but they’re not sure which. One thing blooms, then everything else is green. They don’t understand why the garden isn’t “working.”
And slowly, the enthusiasm fades.
That’s when I see the next phase: they default to what I call the boxwood solution. A “practical” landscaper is brought in. Out go the struggling flowers, in come the Nandinas, the knock-out roses, the foundation plants in predictable rows. The mulch goes down in thick piles. The romance is gone, but at least it’s “done.”
This is how beautiful ideas die in American gardens. And it doesn’t have to be this way.
What the $64 Tomato Gets Right
What William Alexander captured perfectly is that gardening—done impulsively, without experience—is expensive. Not just financially, but emotionally. You spend time, hope, resources, and weekends chasing something you don’t quite know how to build. And when it doesn’t work, it feels like a personal failure.
But it’s not the gardener’s fault.
It’s the assumption that gardens can be assembled like IKEA furniture that’s the problem. That all you need is a sunny spot and a cart full of plants. But gardens aren’t flatpacks. They’re living systems. And building them isn’t a weekend hobby—it’s a professional skill.
That’s what’s missing in today’s gardening culture: the idea that gardeners are professionals, not just hobbyists with nice shears.
Creativity Doesn’t Work Without Knowledge
Let’s talk about color theory. Every spring, homeowners pick out plants from the garden center that look great together in the moment—lavender and coral, yellow and violet. But those blooms are timed for sales, not for the real seasonal rhythm of your landscape. Just because two plants are flowering beside each other at the store doesn’t mean they’ll flower together in your garden.
I know this not because I read it in a book, but because I’ve lived it.
I grow Coral Charm and Lemon Chiffon peonies together because I’ve watched them bloom together for seven years. I know when they peak. I know which bloom first. I know how they behave in the cool mornings of May and the hot afternoons of early June.
You don’t get that kind of creative fluency overnight. Creativity in gardening isn’t just about vision—it’s about experience. It’s about seeing not just the plant, but the sequence. Not just the shape, but the time.
You can’t fake that. And you can’t rush it.
How Do We Reach People Before the Garden Fails?
Here’s the real question I’m wrestling with now—both as a gardener and a business owner:
How do I reach people before the garden fails?
How do I intercept them between inspiration and discouragement—before they default to a contractor and a row of boxwoods?
Because once that stage hits, I’m often out of the picture. The design becomes static. The excitement becomes maintenance. The possibility becomes compromise.
My theory is this: we need to speak to people at the beginning. When they’re still full of questions. When they’re just starting to realize that soil isn’t just dirt. That blooms don’t arrive all at once. That you don’t plant for the moment—you plant for the year, and the years after that.
This article, in fact, is one way I’m trying to do that.
Because here’s the truth: the people trying to build their gardens on their own are not wrong to try. They’re wrong to think they have to do it alone.
And when they go it alone and it doesn’t work, they often blame themselves.
What they should be doing is hiring a gardener.
Gardening is Not Landscaping
What most homeowners don’t realize is that landscaping and gardening are not the same thing.
Landscaping is layout. Budget. Edging. A curb-appeal solution.
Gardening is design. Timing. Ecology. Stewardship. A lifelong relationship.
The average homeowner knows how to hire a landscaper. They’ve seen the trucks. They’ve seen the signs. But they don’t even realize that they can hire a gardener.
That’s part of what I’ll be talking about this week when Tennessee Commissioner of Agriculture, Dr. Charlie Hatcher, visits Natchez Glen. Because if we don’t create real pathways for people to become professional gardeners, we’re going to lose not just momentum—but meaning.
We need a future where gardening isn’t just a trend, but a profession. Where people can build careers from knowing plants intimately, and where clients can trust that someone really knows what to plant, when to plant it, and how to care for it five years from now.
The Garden Is a Long Story
Gardening is not a product. It’s not a weekend. It’s not a vibe.
It’s a process.
It takes years to learn a single cultivar. Decades to know how trees mature. A lifetime to understand the rhythm of soil, sun, and shade.
And yet that’s the joy of it. That’s the magic. That’s why I believe so deeply in the value of what we do—not just as growers, or designers, or consultants—but as gardeners.
So if you’re standing in your garden and wondering why it isn’t what you imagined—don’t give up. And please, don’t settle.
Hire a gardener.
