An Open Letter to the Ecological Movement
By Steve Mydelski | Natchez Glen House
If we love our planet—
If we love the soil that we walk on—
If we love the monarch butterfly that breezes past us—
If we love the cottage garden of our dreams, dripping with irises and peonies and roses—
Then I have to ask you:
Where are the gardens?
Over the last twenty years, the conversation in horticulture has become a fractured thing. On one side: the sales force. The nurseries. The independent garden centers. From the wholesale growers to Brandon at the checkout counter. And on the other side: the academics. The environmentalists. The policy writers and grant winners and university-backed ecologists.
The sales conversation goes something like this:
“Will the plant stay small enough to fit on a rack at Home Depot?”
“Will it bud in time for Saturday morning’s foot traffic?”
The academic conversation goes like this:
“Should we allow cultivated varieties of native plants in ecological gardens?”
“What are the merits of phenotypes versus genotypes?”
“Should a plant be considered native if it isn’t hyperlocal to a specific ecoregion?”
Nowhere in this—
Absolutely nowhere in this—
Is the garden.
I’ve driven thousands of miles across the United States.
I’ve visited over 200 independent garden centers.
You know what I didn’t see a lot of? Gardens.
You know what I rarely find in my own city of Nashville? Gardens.
Not a display bed in a parking lot. Not a lawn ringed by liriope and river rock.
I mean a real garden—one built for place, for soil, for pollinators, for people.
What we’ve called gardens in recent years are often nothing more than wooden raised beds, framed up from weekend box store kits, filled with a mix of who-knows-what, planted with a few seedlings, and smothered in dyed mulch. These gardens last 90 days, maybe. Maybe they produce a tomato. But they don’t build a gardener. They don’t build a relationship. They don’t build anything lasting.
And I look around and ask again:
Where are the gardens?
And by extension:
Where are the gardeners?
Where are the jobs for gardeners?
Where is the investment—not in awareness campaigns, but in implementation?
This is not bitterness.
This is experience.
At Natchez Glen House, I have kept my head down for a decade and worked.
My wife and I bought land on our own. We planted thousands of dahlias. Hundreds upon hundreds of peonies. We integrated native plants—over 60% of the plantings are native species—into a living garden that buzzes with life, season after season.
Not once—not once—have I had a visit from a university, an ecology program, or a native plant advocacy group.
Every single person who has come here has come because I, as a business owner, found a way to invite them.
And now in 2025, I still see the same thing:
No gardens.
No jobs for gardeners.
No jobs creating gardens.
And yet the grant proposals roll on. The books keep selling. The Instagram posts keep flowing.
To people like Professor Doug Tallamy and others who have shaped the ecological gardening discourse over the last decade—I write this not to accuse, but to ask:
Where are the gardens?
Because if Homegrown National Park is working—why can’t I see it on the ground?
Because if the ecological movement is growing—why is the horticulture job market shrinking?
Because if native plants are truly the future—why aren’t there careers, teams, companies, or cities building real gardens with them?
I’ve checked the zip codes. I’ve looked at the registries. I’ve read the pledges.
But the actual gardens?
They’re almost nonexistent.
And without gardens, we don’t need gardeners.
And without gardeners, we can’t make gardens.
And without both, we don’t help the butterflies, or the soil, or the pollinators.
That’s the loop we’re in.
That’s the mirage.
I believe in gardening. I believe in its power to heal, to teach, to restore.
I believe a garden that unites beauty and ecology is one of the most powerful human creations possible.
But I no longer believe in the illusion that we’re doing it at scale.
Because we’re not.
If this movement wants to mean something, it has to stop winning arguments on the internet and start putting shovels in the ground.
We need gardens.
We need gardeners.
We need jobs for them.
We need investment—not only in programs, but in people who make gardens.
If this letter makes you uncomfortable, good.
I’m not asking for apology. I’m asking for alignment.
Let’s stop talking about saving the planet.
Let’s start planting something real.
I’m willing to be proven wrong.
But until then, I’ll keep gardening.
—
Steve Mydelski
Natchez Glen House
Franklin, Tennessee