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About The Well-Placed Weed
Ryan Gainey was one of the most celebrated American garden designers of the past three decades. He grew up in rural South Carolina, where he developed a deep love of plants from his relatives and neighbors. After coming to Atlanta in the 70s and opening three beloved garden shops, he began to design gardens around the city and eventually around the the world. He died in July 2016 in Lexington, Georgia.
The Well-Placed Weed: The Bountiful Life of Ryan Gainey is a feature documentary about the life of Ryan Gainey. It was shot over the course of six years, from 2010 to 2016. Gainey has been the focus of numerous gardening television programs, but this film is the first project to examine the complexities of his life. As the film shows, he was a contradictory character, both off-putting and tender, self-absorbed and generous, artificial and authentic. Ryan Gainey was a lover of beauty, and his home garden in Decatur, Georgia was his masterpiece. It was, as he often said, a “garden of remembrance” where his old friends and family lived on in the overlapping blooms of heirloom plants.
