Let’s get something straight right off the bat: The Renaissance Garden Guy is NOT a person, it’s a publication. And it’s NOT a publication that’s just about gardening, it’s about A LOT MORE. But any misconceptions are understandable, and I’m to blame for all of them.

Years ago, this publication began its life humbly as my personal brainchild. What I believed at the time to be practical reasoning served as the impetus behind its creation, and informed its naming as well. Back then, I couldn’t have known that I was stepping in a serious pile of crap when I titled it The Renaissance Garden Guy (the publication, not the crap pile – though evidently, to some former readers and subscribers, the distinction isn’t clear). 

A little over a year before I ran The Renaissance Garden Guy’s first piece, I built myself a garden and started growing plants in it. I found this simultaneously relaxing and exciting, and I started getting seriously into it. Since I was a writer, I thought jotting down some thoughts about this new gardening dodge would be fun for me and interesting to readers. That’s the nickel tour of the reasoning behind the publication’s start and the “Garden” part of its name.

The “Renaissance” portion of the publication’s name partly had to do with the fact that I’d personally always been an avid reader and rabid art collector, and that I’d had a mildly interesting and diverse professional/vocational history. But I knew that I’d need a lot more than just a few interests and a cool resume to my name to be even remotely considered a “Renaissance man,”  so I was certain that the “Guy” part of the publication’s name would sufficiently mitigate the asshole-ishness of any potential Renaissance man-associated pretense.

But the “Renaissance” part of the title would also reference my plan for the publication to ultimately feature writing from a diverse group of contributors, across a diverse set of topics. And the “Garden” part of The Renaissance Garden Guy name wouldn’t just be about my own actual garden-centric actions (or those of other contributing garden writers), it would also serve as a unifying backdrop for the publication’s planned content variety, since so much of the arts, sciences, humanites, etc. finds metaphor in, if not direct correlation with – and inspiration from – the taxonomic kingdom Plantae. It was cinched. “Renaissance” tempered by “Guy” infused with “Garden” would be a great name for this great new publication.

Nah. It wouldn’t be.

The name, The Renaissance Garden Guy, makes people think that the publication is about only gardening, or that the publication isn’t a publication at all but is rather just a guy, or that the publication is a combination of the two (i.e., a guy who only writes about gardening). From a publishing standpoint, that name represents what might be one of the biggest backfires of all time, and the stains from that steaming nomenclative crap pile I stepped in way back when might have proven indelible if it weren’t for a few critical factors working in the publication’s favor.

There are those readers of digital written content who are exceptionally savvy, well-informed, and curious. They are, after all, readers. The audience of The Renaissance Garden Guy – its readers, subscribers, visitors – comes from among this number. Discernment is the defining attribute of this audience, and it’s what’s allowed its members to get past the publication’s misleading title. And The Renaissance Garden Guy not only attracts its audience from this group, its excellent contributing writers also come from among these ranks. The interest that The Renaissance Garden Guy has cultivated from within this demographic is remarkable, and it’s reflected in the publication’s not inconsiderable number of subscribers, readers, and visitors, as well as in the commitment, enthusiasm, and dedication of its highly-talented contributors. And this – the increased readership by a savvy growing audience, combined with the presence of the work of exceptional contributing writers – has helped propel the popularity of the written content found in The Renaissance Garden Guy beyond the limiting stigma of the publication’s misappellation.

Another significant factor in allowing The Renaissance Garden Guy’s content and subsequent popularity and readership to transcend its misleading title’s perceptual strictures will be the planned re-branding of the publication. Without going into too much revealing detail, improvements to the publication’s title, tagline, menus, appearance, accessibility, navigation, etc. will ensure recognition of its nature, identity, and diversity of content by all visitors. Although re-branding is undoubtedly the most direct way to go about ditching misconceptions about the publication and its content, it’s also the most challenging to undertake. It’s a lot of work, girls and boys, it’s time-consuming as hell, and it ain’t cheap. But believe me, we here at headquarters are on it.

Social media. It’s another place where I stepped in shit because of my original fumbling of The Renaissance Garden Guy’s identity. Ditching misconceptions about the publication on its various platforms is critical, and some serious re-branding needs to be done there, particularly on X/Twitter, where The Renaissance Garden Guy exists in confusing, anthropomorphized form. Its profile picture is a shot of my own face, and the account’s description refers to my predilections/activities as a human being. To new followers on X, or to those unaware of the publication’s identity, it’s not easy to tell where the human being ends, and the publication begins. Plus, there’s that confusing “Garden” thing again right there in the name. It shouldn’t be there, but it is, and it throws people off.

Such ID transgressions, however, are forgiven by a respectable number of particularly savvy X/Twitter followers, many of whom are also subscribers to the publication. This group has got the sitch figured out. They’re able to dig the periodic flower pic that I toss into The Renasissance Garden Guy’s X/Twitter feed (without their pineal glands switching off the higher functioning parts of their brains at the sight of a few pretty blooms and effectively removing any possibility of reading, let alone comprehending, the import of the written word beyond what’s printed on a bag of bat guano plant fertilizer), AND, they actually READ (and often share) the written content from the publication that shows up there. Kudos to you, savvy readers of/subscribers to The Renaissance Garden Guy publication – your sagacity and your keen discernment are dearly appreciated.

But for the benefit of those X/Twitter users (and, hopefully, future subscribers to The Renaissance Garden Guy) yet unfamiliar with the publication and its existence beyond what’s conferred by its confusing social media presentation, clarification is imminent. In addition to a number of other changes, the publication’s account will be entirely separate from my own personal account. Although both will be verified with X’s blue checkmark, and there’ll be links between the two, there will be no mistaking the guy for the publication and vice versa. And it’ll be clear that the publication itself is about much more than just gardening.

As important as it is to be ditching misconceptions about The Renaissance Garden Guy and its content, it’s even more important to the publication that its already substantial number of free subscriptions gets even more substantial. It might not be immediately apparent, but trust me when I tell you that the expense of keeping a digital publication like The Renaissance Garden Guy afloat is significant. And although the publication’s subscriptions are 100% free and there’s never any paywall whatsoever involved with accessing its content, more visitors to The Renaissance Garden Guy translates to cost-covering revenue for its publishers (my wife Ann and yours truly) via increased affiliate partner sales and returns on third party advertising. And more visitors to The Renaissance Garden Guy arise directly from a growing subscriber base. The publication’s SEO and indexing scores indicate that direct visitors (i.e. subscribers) periodically account for the highest percentage of readership of the publication, at times eclipsing even the large number of visitors that find it through organic internet searches.

Of course, the benefits to readers of a subscription to The Renaissance Garden Guy are manifold. As a subscriber, you get all the stuff we publish, including every new piece and the monthly newsletter, delivered to your inbox. Your email, which, besides your first name (or nickname), is the only thing you need to provide in order to get a subscription. And that info’s kept private and is NEVER sold or shared. Even we as publishers never even see it unless we happen to plumb the depths of the substantial subscriber list, and even then, we’d never know who you are unless you tell us.

So ok, subscriptions. Let me put it to you like this: If you’ve not done it already, we’d really appreciate it if you’d subscribe to The Renaissance Garden Guy.

I’m going to wrap this thing up right here by tipping our collective hand and giving you a heads-up on this publication’s forthcoming new name. Since we (publishers, staff writers, contributing writers) have been using it all along in semi-colloquial fashion, it won’t be a surprise to subscribers and regular readers. Its official new name is going to be The RGG. And even though we’ve been using it since Day One, and will continue to do so, it won’t be official until it, along with the rest of this publication’s re-branding, is written in code. Get ready for The RGG. Its re-branding is coming, but the same great content will still be here, and there’ll be even more of it. The RGG is dead, long live the The RGG.

You’ll never see the crap stains.

Publisher’s note: Pictured in this article’s featured photo are items from the collection of our dear friend Kevin Richardson, a Renaissance man if ever there was one.