Steyn Viljoen

previously, in garden- or landscape-making, beauty became a requirement, something that was imposed on the garden. Think of shaped hedges or plants selected solely for their colors.

We’re more interested in beauty as an emergent property. We want new ways of understanding beauty, and we’re increasingly rooting them in our ethics. We want to encourage the beauty found in the aliveness, or the kindness, or the gentleness of what we do as landscape makers. How things look, in this view, is slightly less important.

Of course the thing about beginning again — about starting over midway through is that you have to be willing to watch yourself die.

I learned that from writing this newsletter.

Next week, it will be three years since I launched The Cereal Aisle, and I think the most important thing I have learned in the time since is that rebirth is on the other... See more

Things should be costly (either in materials or the effort we put in) because it proves love and sacrifice went into it — for the benefit of all.

People who are good at solving poorly defined problems don't get the same kind of kudos. They don’t get any special titles or clubs. There is no test they can take that will spit out a big, honking number that will make everybody respect them.

“In the past, jobs were about muscles. Now they’re about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the heart.”