Fascinating though the conversation between Glendinning and Hobhouse is, I don’t get the feeling that either of them has really considered their position. They are making old arguments, and is that the best way to go into a new project? The whole design v plantsmanship contest is old hat, and was artificial in the first place, in much the same way as the spurious division between art and science. If he really wants to do something he’ll have to leave behind the old christian ideas of dichotomy, and enter the more difficult and rewarding zone of duality, plurality and uncertainty. He needs to let go.
Very funny though, that he thought he might find the radical by looking outside the professional gardening world. Amateur gardeners are the most conservative creatures on earth, artists and writers or not. They will not plump for his blind Peruvian in a million years.

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