I went to a well-attended talk at the Genealogical Society Tuesday night — "Hollywood House Demesne: An American Garden Abroad" — a guided tour of ubergardener Carolyn Lynch's restored Georgian estate in county Limerick, Ireland, by Lynch herself.

All of Boston's Gardeneratti were there.  From the back Bay Garden Club to the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, it was a who's who of local hort couture.


The Hollywood House sits on 300 acres of rambling bridal paths and misty vistas.  The slide show presentation lasted an hour and we left feeling we'd really only gotten a peep-show.  It was mouth-watering and, well, I'll admit it: mildly infuriating. 

It is amazing what you can accomplish with piles of money.  (And the Lynches should know — the extent of their philanthropic work is mind-boggling.)  I certainly don't want to reduce Mrs. Lynch's achievement in Hollywood to the bottom line, because there's an awful lot of truly heinous shit that money does (Donald Trump anyone?), and what the Lynches have done here took vision and will and was obviously a labor of love.

Lynch herself is charmingly down-to-earth.  Casual, conversational, even giggly at times, Lynch's talk was anything but scholarly. One of my favorite lines of the evening was "For gardeners enthusiasm is tantamount." 

Talk about cliffhangers.  I kept waiting for some mention of the legions of dedicated souls it surely took to make Hollywood the landscape masterpiece it is, and that it must take to maintain it year-round.  I understand that part of the lure of Hollywood is the illusion of natural beauty, but you're talking to gardeners here, who know the blood, sweat and tears that go into the illusion — if not usually so grand an illusion as this.

But when, during a brief Q&A after the slide show some cheeky bastard asked the size of the staff, Mrs. Lynch gigglingly referred the matter to her husband, saying that was his department.

"Two leprechauns," he answered dryly, "and an army of fairies."

It was an interesting moment.  There were many ways the question might have been answered, but given the crowd this was probably the best.  Mr. Lynch's riposte was, I suppose, as knowingly arch as the question itself.

You might even call it... tantamount.