June 26 , 2020
Lovettsville , VA
Dear Scott ,
The bananas are beginning to cook.
Well , as your letter writing accomplishment are obviously taking second berth to your Facebook overshares , I thought I would pick up the billy club ( as most char must do in this life ) , and prod you with its slightly slubbed final stage .
The bananas are begin to cook .
I enjoyed yourlatest Rantabout things in the gardening world that you make love and loathe , but erased my pithy comment about 600 characters in , feeling it was dear to get going a new , more focussed , discussion on the thing that also make me gaga as a gardener and garden writer in a new(ish ) digital long time .
Bird-sown Petasites hybridus (with violet leaf for scale).
As almost all of them call for a laptop computer which is not particularly photogenic , I ’ll flirt with you with picture of the garden right now instead .
Bird - sown Petasites hybridus ( with purplish leaf for scale leaf ) .
There are many thing to love about the digital age of course – my word of honor processor for one , my digital SLR for another . Hell , my iPhone camera at this distributor point . But I know , in a little flyspeck corner of my mind which I often close for comment , that each is working with the passage of time to make me lazier and less clever . deepness of theater nuance ? Grammatical tucket ? Tricky spellings which tax the mastermind ? All fatal accident to algorithms and sweet sweet convenience if I allow it . And I so often do .
Echinacea‘Tres Amigos’ with belamcanda fans – nowIris domestica.
It ’s no sinfulness to tax the grammar . If you ’ve the accomplishment , then you canna .
The Scots would point out , quite rightfully , that the last word neutralize the inwardness of the thing , but I like to feel it is penned in the style of Ogden Nash . Perhaps you might choose CAKE ’s more modern approach with the lyrics of John McCrea inStabbing Shadows :
Adjectives on a typewriter , he move his words like a prizefighter . The phrenetic pace of the idea inside the cell .
Well, not an achmea, but an ananas. Pineapples in Virginia. So. Much. Fun.
That last personal line of credit ’s got ta come across with the military personnel who just penned 722 words ( I counted ) on high octane gasoline .
So if we allow these things to ‘ avail us , ’ will they eventually hurt us instead ? Which work me to the issue of the modern Mexican valium , however silklike , that tie us in knots and limit the creative [ horticultural ] intellect . I inquire if you ’ll agree .
Echinacea‘Tres Amigos ’ with belamcanda fans – nowIris domestica .
Mixed shrubs made ever so much better by a touch of Cosmopolitan. (Miscanthus sinensis)
Autocorrect
Do you know how long it takes to thumb - typeAechmea fasciatainto a phone with muddy hands ? Do you know how much I ’m forced to drink when I then read ‘ condescending fascist ’ on a text I ’ve just sent to a botanist friend who is probably enquire how much news I ’ve been taking in late – and from which site ?
Wait a minute of arc , of track you do , you ’ve take at least a 10 on me . At least I can see my projection screen at this point .
All say , it does be given to specify the amount of times one wants to thumb - typeAchmea fasciatainto a phone with muddy workforce . Easier to typecast ‘ urn flora ’ and pray there ’s only one .
Primo Black Pearl heuchera (a long-lived stunner!) with Sun Power hosta.
Well , not an achmea , but an genus Ananas . Pineapples in Virginia . So . Much . Fun .
Google dictation
Which , like its evil brother , Autocorrect , does not realize botanic nomenclature and turns a simple task into ten wasted minutes of your aliveness you will never get back . Here ’s a great example from today : Tripsicum dactyloidesto the folks at Apple is “ trips to come back to the ladies . ”
And , if I type it in , and forget to shoot that top left “ Yes , that ’s bloody well what I type ” word mesmerism , I get something evenly incomprehensible courtesy of Autocorrect . Unless of class , I ’ve typed it before . Or not . Depends . Meanwhile , the tripsicum has spread four inch .
I imagine Dr. Fauci and his lot are struggling with the same issue : “ No ! I say remdesivir – the polymerase inhibitor , you idiot machine , not ‘ REM death severe . ’ Holy hell – like the President needs to suppose slumber will kill hoi polloi at this point . Somebody get me a new phone . ”
I always think I love the red ones the best, then I see the pure lavender ones.
Writing forSEO(Search Engine Optimization)
I do believe I dislike this most of all . Not simply because of the articles that have been slaughter by editors with their thirsty marketing eyes fixated ( quite understandably ) on central words and their synonyms awkwardly repeated 16 time in 900 word of honor . Nor because of one - conviction paragraphs that can no longer hold their straits up proudly and call themselves paragraph . But because of the refinement that is mislay when all this happens – particularly when it total to clever , teasing form of address .
Would you rather learn “ The Necessity of Underwear ” to gently insert you to the painful subject of staking , or scroll through yet another “ The One Crazy Trick Great Gardens Have in Common – trusted to Shock You ! ”
Mixed bush made ever so much better by a pinch of Cosmopolitan . ( Miscanthus sinensis )
Not for salad fixins’
Had this SEO trumpery been the average eighty years ago , it would have whole obliterate most great garden literature , include the scratchings of His Royal Highness , Monty Don . Loath as I am to mention great British garden writers in light of your predisposition on the subject , I feel an example is necessary .
One of Christopher Lloyd’sCountry Lifearticles “ Shun the Invisible Worm ” ( found inIn My Garden ) is a piece about sequence bloom in late summer borders ; and somewhere , deep in the center of it , he comes to the threat of innovate the phlox eelworm into one ’s garden . Then , just as apace , back to love of plants , and of intercrossed rhododendrons . The insect was just a blip ; but in regain it and moving through the clause , the reader - gardener is ravish deep within Lloyd ’s land .
I simply would n’t have fallen in lovemaking with that garden ( or that brain ) without that journey . Onefeelsthe garden . One beginsto knowthe garden . His clause are a intermixture of uncoiled - to - decimal point and linger - a - small . Both are necessary .
Can we at least agree on Pimms? Don’t tell me your mixer is soda water.
The gravid American garden writerHenry Mitchellwrote likewise , as did many others in the daytime before newspapers threw out their garden columnists onto severe pavement — coerce them to betray their souls in a world run byYoastand its little red frowny faces . Some of them still do .
unexampled 2020 deed of conveyance for Lloyd ’s piece : The Terrifying Pest That Will put down Your Garden !
Notes from 2020 editor : Remove rhodos and summertime margin option . Not relevant . Need some keyphrase heading . Can you make the worm more terrific ?
Notes from Lloyd:[annoyed murmuration ]
Primo Black Pearl heuchera ( a long - last stunner ! ) with Sun Power hosta .
Those frowny faces say overbold things like “ Keyphrase has been found less than four times . ” “ 42 % of your conviction take more than 20 words . ” “ 82 % of your readers have started run down their Instagram feed . ”
I wonder if those who do n’t blog or write content for websites ( all fifteen of them ) understand how much has been lost in a one - in - deep marketplace . 20 words folks . That ’s what Yoast and Google think of our power to take at this point .
For the welfare of succeeding employers / editors reading this letter , I find compelled to bring that I am amply poetise in SEO and will utterly sell my soul in a world run by Yoast and its little red frowny faces . The paving is so very concentrated . Scott , I ’m sure you ’ll link me in my abject groveling .
Writers get ta bustle about in a COVID universe .
Exclamation points
Or rather , the novel penury for us to habituate exclamation points in texts , emails , or prose — or risk pissing someone off with our unembodied , obviously bigheaded , tone !
You probably would n’t empathise because you ’re so “ in effect - natured ” and “ sometimes humorous , ” but some of us do n’t have to work that heavy to make others believe we ’re using a snotty tone , so we ’re forced to use more ecphonesis points !
To ally ! To colleague ! To the great unwashed we ’ve never met before ! I expire a little act each clock time I do it ! To those who categorically turn down – I deep respect your position ! But maybe you ’re grumpy ! I ca n’t tell ! And see paragraph above !
I always think I love the red unity the good , then I see the everlasting lavender ones .
Can we all just agree to stop using them ? ! ? Can we all just agree that an slightly uplifted timbre is mean in all correspondence , no matter how short ? ! ? Please !
Insane misinformation, perfectly SEO’d
Insane . And because I have no approximation if it is denigrative to cite these multitude , I wo n’t . alternatively I ’ll make up something that I may , or may not have latterly read , by someone who may , or may not have 45 thousand followers , of whom 44 thousand may , or may not , be Russian bots .
“ Plant unripe healthy cocoyam ! The healthy leaf are amazing in the garden ! And expert for you ! you could eat the green salubrious leaves in tons of way of life ! People say the leave of absence are medicinal – I ’m sure they totally are ! They just face healthy ! And green ! Why not test it ? works music is good medication right ? Right ! ”
Not for salad fixins ’
There ’s those exclamation full point again .
Yeah buddy . You ’re right . Taro leaves do happen to be eatable . Boiled . boil hard . Just do n’t make one of those “ short ton of manner ” chomping on the raw leaves with a steaming cup of ashwagandha before you startle your sun salutation , or your pharynx will swell shut . And then you ’ll involve something other than plant medication to realine your chakras .
While I give everyone and anyone a gratuitous crack to make mistakes in life and in mark as we all do , I can not get over some of the gross shit I see out there . I presuppose I should be thankful that it ’s mostly Russian bots scanning it .
What was my SEO header keyphrase again?
Speaking of flora medicine , it seems to be time to close up this fabulously clever word mainframe with all of its trivial demon and frowny nerve , and mix in myself a G&T – though I know we disagree on the pasty issue of what to pair with one ’s tonic . Your taste for Vodka is unsettling , but I will assume a Vodka tonic water pairs well with a Vodka jello square toes after a long sidereal day keeping the elephant off the phlox . Personally I do n’t see why you do n’t use Everclear and salve a chip of immediate payment .
Can we at least hold on Pimms ? Do n’t distinguish me your mixer is soda water .
Yours in the sublime genius of soda at least ,
Marianne
P.S. Just rebuild the carburettor on my edger with the help of a booster . I too abominate this gasoline dance we do , but at Stihl ’s outrageous European - esque fuel prices , I ’ll continue to use my additive .
P.P.S. The irony of having to mess up with the SEO of this varsity letter to reach Green - Face Nirvana has get off me to my second G&T.
