Gardening

Industry, Globe mourn the loss of Ask the Garden Guy’s R. Wayne Mezitt

An icon in the plant world, he was a mentor to many and a steward of responsible horticulture.

By Lindsay Crudele

July 25, 2024

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When Beth Mezitt met her husband, R. Wayne Mezitt, he was studying business at Cornell University. A career in gardening was not his plan, though Wayne’s father and grandfather ran Weston Nurseries back home in Hopkinton.

“He and I would go out in the woods as a young couple, all starry-eyed, [and] we would see other couples go off to be alone and so forth, but Wayne and I would walk through the woods, admiring the trillium or talking about the tent caterpillar,” she said.

As Wayne was finishing his degree, his grandfather back home became ill, and his father, Ed, asked whether Wayne could return to help run the nursery. Beth said he dropped everything and went, which didn’t surprise her a bit.

“He’s never met a plant he doesn’t love,” she said.

Mezitt returned to Weston Nurseries, where in subsequent decades, he became an icon in the plant world, mentoring scores of budding horticulturists and developing dozens of hybrid plant varieties that take root across the country.

With sorrow and sympathy, the Globe mourns the loss of “Ask the Garden Guy” writer R. Wayne Mezitt, who died July 18 after battling a tick-borne illness. Here, you trusted Wayne to solve so many of your gardening mysteries. And beyond the page, those he had an impact on shared their reflections.

“He had become sort of the statesman of horticulture in our region,” said Joann Vieira, director of public gardens and horticulture for the Trustees of Reservations.

As a third-generation member of Weston Nurseries’ family legacy, Wayne held a long list of leadership posts across regional and national horticulture groups. Colleagues pointed to Wayne’s stewardship as a means by which he elevated conscientious horticulture practices while championing the industry. Inspired by his curiosity and calm, those he mentored became leaders themselves.

“He’s certainly the most influential horticulturist in a generation for our organization, and I would say he’s also one of the most influential in the whole of the United States,” said James Hearsum, president and executive director for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. “He was a legend, honestly.”

Fellow third-generation nursery owner Pat Bigelow, president of Northborough’s Bigelow Nurseries, served alongside several organizational positions with Wayne.

“He was one of the most passionately engaged horticulturists I’ve ever known,” said Bigelow.

Alongside plants, Hearsum said, Mezitt loved people, and they flocked to him. That sense helped spur growth for MassHort at a much-needed moment for the organization.

“He built a group around him that really sustained our organization and eventually caused us to thrive,” he said. “Wherever Wayne is, there’s a crowd.”

As Hearsum pondered the decision to come to Massachusetts, he polled his regional colleagues.

“Every single one of them asked me, ‘Is Wayne Mezitt still the chair of the board?’” he recalled. “‘Yes.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, you should take the job then.’”

While a peer to experienced horticulturists, Wayne generously mentored newcomers.

Vieira met Mezitt just after college graduation while she worked at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, now the New England Botanic Garden.

“For all of my professional career, he was one of the steady influences who really led the way,” said Vieira. “Not only could I turn to him for plant information, because any … plant, you know, he would know something about it or he knew who bred it or he knew when it came into the trade or he knew its exact characteristics. He was just an encyclopedia in that way,” she said.

Vieira said Wayne built trust among his colleagues with a mix of enthusiasm and measured calm.

“He was like the air we breathe in some ways,” she said. “He was just so constant.”

Thirty years ago, writer Kirk Brown met Mezitt, who was at the time president of the American Nursery and Landscape Association, now AmericanHort. Mezitt was tending bar at a networking session, and he invited Brown to join him so the first-time attendee could meet more people. At the end of the night, he invited Brown to join the Garden Writers Association, which he did.

“He said, “You’re going to be president of that organization,” recalled Brown.

Thirty years later, that came true. Brown credits the friendship and mentoring that began that night, tending bar as a newcomer in Louisville.

Also 30 years ago, Neal Sanders, a writer and gardener from Medfield, was shopping at Weston Nurseries when Mezitt began to help him make selections. Before long, Mezitt was “bouncing around in a Jeep in order to make sure that we got trees we liked,” recalled Sanders, who memorialized Mezitt on his own blog this week.

“He took interest in individual people and what they were doing, and tried to understand what they were doing, and would go out of his way to be of assistance … doing things that the owner of the nursery certainly isn’t supposed to have the time to do, but he did anyway,” said Sanders.

Mezitt’s colleagues found his easy-going style magnetic, attracting collaborators to raise the profile and standard of the horticulture industry.

“He was very conscious of the fact that the nursery industry had put things on the market that causes problems,” Beth said. The two coauthored a book, “For the Love of Gardening,” to commemorate the nursery’s 100th anniversary in 2023.

Mezitt got to work hybridizing sterile plants that would not spread, advising on nursery selections, and serving as president of the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group, which guided the state’s official list of invasive species.

“He would like for the industry to take the responsibility and be wise about it,” she said.

“He was the conscience of a lot of us,” said Bigelow. “If there was an issue out there that was important to the nursery industry, he made sure that all of us knew about it and were participating.” Colleagues consulted with him for guidance across complex issues, from environmental to labor concerns.

Mezitt continued the legacy of plant hybridization begun by his grandfather and father, who bred the brilliant PJM rhododendron in 1945, considered a breakthrough plant. Mezitt’s modern work focused mostly on hybrids that bloomed later in the season, said Beth, who estimates the full list counts around 100. But the desire to share plants meant that the Mezitts never patented their hybrids, which also included kalmia, pine, and dogwood varieties.

Weston hybrids, especially the PJM, revolutionized the national landscape for rhododendrons and azaleas, said Joe Bruso, president of the Massachusetts chapter of the Rhododendron Society, and Wayne established himself as a knowledgeable and congenial collaborator.

“He’d show up in my house every once in a while, usually carrying a gift of a plant or something that he wanted to share with me,” Bruso said.

At the time of his death, Mezitt was at work writing a book about the PJM. Prior to his return to the Globe this past year, he also served as “Ask the Landscaper” writer from 2014 to 2018.

“It was an honor to work with Wayne, who approached every reader question as if it were a member of his own family seeking his advice,” said Eileen McEleney Woods, the Globe’s Address editor. “He was a careful and kind steward of the gardening column and of this planet. We are heartbroken.”

Carol Stocker, who retired from writing the Ask the Gardener column in April, said, “There was probably no important horticultural organization in the region that Wayne was not a member of,” and he used those platforms to lead the charge against invasive plants. “Wayne was the best kind of businessman, one who used his platform to spread knowledge and enthusiasm for a subject he was born into, horticulture,” Stocker said. “He was an enthusiastic and energetic visionary who loved his life, his work, and his community. There was no one else like him on the horticultural scene. He’s going to be irreplaceable.”

“He really was an optimist,” said Peter, his son. Recently at dinner, a newcomer to the industry approached Wayne to ask what made him so successful.

“He thought about it for a second, [and] he said, ‘luck,’” recalled Peter. “Now, what he really meant was, you make your own luck. You’re going to get lucky if you get yourself out there, remain optimistic, try things, talk to people, network, and then luck will find its way to you eventually. That’s what he meant.”

It was a childlike sense of wonder that drove Wayne’s curiosity, said longtime friend and landscape horticulturist Warren Leach, who recalled Wayne’s tendency to deliver plants to other nurseries in order to help ensure their ongoing availability.

“It was always thinking of the future, which, as gardeners, we all are, right?” he said. “We’re planting trees for the next generation.”

Peter Mezitt said he hopes to continue his father’s work on the PJM book.

“I always want to be kind of like my dad, where I project positive, be the cheerleader, [and] try things,” he said.

Lindsay Crudele can be reached at [email protected]. Follow Address on Twitter @globehomes and subscribe to our free weekly newsletter at Boston.com/address-newsletter.