C. Z. Guest
"A garden is a good and loyal friend"
Two people reached out to me to ask me if I had C.Z. Guest on my list of Lost Ladies of Garden Writing. I did not! I hadn’t heard of her when I got the first suggestion in December and added her to my list. (Or if I had heard of her, which is possible, I didn’t remember her.)
Then, another friend sent me a text asking about C. Z. Guest when she learned of her as she began to watch Feud: Capote vs. the Swans, the second season of Feud on FX. So I moved her up my list to write about sooner than planned.
C. Z. Guest was one of Capote’s swans! And a gardener!
Her Biography
You can easily find biographical information about C. Z., who was born Lucy Douglas Cochrane in 1920 in Boston. She always went by C. Z., which was based on her brother’s pronunciation of “Sissy.” She married Winston Frederick Churchill Guest in 1947 at the home of Ernest Hemingway, had two children, and died in 2003. In between being a socialite who was often named to best-dressed lists, she enjoyed horseback riding until a riding accident in 1976 left her injured and bedridden for a short time.
C. Z. grew up and lived among “the rich and famous.” Reading about her life, you are likely to encounter many Churchill’s, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (godparents to her children), nearly every famous fashion designer from the 20th century, and several painters, including Diego Rivera, Salvador Dalí, Kenneth Paul Block, and Andy Warhol, who all painted portraits of her. Then there are all “the swans,” the socialites of the day. It is an exhaustive list.
How Did C. Z. Learn to Garden?
One wonders how a woman who grew up in an upper-class family, who was introduced as a debutante in 1937, often skipped out of classes to go horseback riding, learned about gardening. In one interview, she said that as a child, she would follow her mother’s gardener around the garden, asking him questions. Beyond that? I assume she just kept asking and observing and, hopefully, at one point, doing some gardening of her own. She and her husband had several homes with many gardens from which to learn about plants.
She was known to her friends as a gardener as well. She noted in one interview that after her riding accident, friends would call to ask her how she was and then proceed to ask her gardening questions.
Her Gardening Books
When you read the biographies of the socialites whom the author Truman Capote called “the swans,” C.Z. stands out because of her gardening, and later because of her gardening books and garden advice column.
Her first gardening book, First Garden, came out in 1976. Truman Capote wrote the introduction and Cecil Beaton provided illustrations. Most of the affordable used copies of this book are the edition published in 1987. (C.Z. was one of the few “swans” who continued to talk to Capote after his short story, “La Côte Basque, 1965” which was based on their lives and revealed secrets they had shared with him, appeared in Esquire magazine in 1975.)
A second book, C. Z. Guest’s 5 Seasons of Gardening (Bulfinch Pr.) came out in 1992.
Garden Talk: Ask Me Anything (Universe) was published in 2001. C. Z. wrote this book because she said people asked the same questions over and over, so she put those questions and her answers in one book.
Her children’s book, Tiny Green Thumbs (Little Brown Books for Young Readers) came out in 2000. According to the description,
“Tiny Bun and his grandmother plan, plant, and grow a vegetable garden, in a story with step-by-step instructions for planting carrots, beans, cucumbers, corn, and sunflowers.”
Her Gardening Column
According to an article by Rhoda Amon (Newsday) written in 1978,
“But the one who really convinced her to become a horticultural Ann Landers was Ann Landers herself, in real life her friend, Eppie Lederer of Chicago. “The woman could make a rose grow out of a stone,” says Ann Landers, who recruited C. Z. Guest to write a chapter on “Gardening: How to Care for Favorite Flowers and Plants” for the “Ann Landers Encyclopedia: A to Z Improve your Life Emotionally, Medically, Sexually, Socially and Spiritually” (Doubleday) to come out in October. Thus C. Z. Guest became one of Ann Landers’ stable of authorities, in the company of Dr. Michael deBakey on open heart surgery, John Cardinal Cody, Archbishop of Chicago, on religion, and Dr. William H. Masters on Sex.”
C. Z. was known for giving straightforward advice to many celebrities, including Ann Landers.
“And among the first to seek Guest’s advice was Ann Landers herself. “Like most people, she overwaters her plants. I keep telling her, they are not fish,” C.Z. Guest says.
Artist Andy Warhol is another inveterate overwaterer. Between the parties on the East End, he manages to overindulge his plants. “I gave him two beautiful fig trees and both died,” C. Z. Guest says.”
C. Z. wrote her weekly garden advice column, Around the Garden, for the New York Post beginning in 1978. At one time it was syndicated in 350 newspapers. I couldn’t pinpoint a date for her last column, but found some columns written in 2000 via Newspapers.com.
Her Website
C. Z. also had a website! It no longer exists but because nothing is ever really gone from the internet, I found an image of the front page.
She also offered a variety of products for sale on her website, including a “mildly fragranced” insect repellant.
Her Advice
I found two C. Z. Guest quotes which I think exemplify her approach to gardening.
“The most important thing about gardening is to enjoy yourself and have a good time.”
and
“I’ve always felt that having a garden is like having a good and loyal friend.”
Both are from a feature article published about her in the Palm Beach Daily News on February 1, 2002, by Casey O’Conner.
(In that article, I also learned that C. Z. was once the host of a gardening show on QVC. When asked how she would compare herself to Martha Stewart, she answered, “I don’t cook.” )
Digging a Little Deeper!
One could spend a lot of time finding interesting tidbits about C. Z. Guest through newspapers.com, YouTube, etc., especially since the new series, Feud: Truman vs. the Swans, came out. I haven’t watched the series, but I read The Swans of Fifth Avenue: A Novel by Melanie Benjamin (2016) to better understand the story of “the swans.” C. Z. was only mentioned a few times in that novel and most of those mentions related to her gardening.
By writing just these few paragraphs about C. Z. Guest, I feel like I’ve shown you one flower, one leaf in a garden full of interesting flowers, trees, and shrubs. As noted, there are numerous articles and videos available via easy online searches, if you want to know more about C. Z. in and out of the garden. But don’t say I didn’t warn you that it is a big—and interesting— rabbit hole to explore.
If you know of any other Lost Ladies of Garden Writing that you’d like me to find out more information about, let me know!
She was 80 when she published her children's book and 81 when she published her last gardening book. A good reminder that "it's never too late." She hardly seems like a "lost" lady--my library system still has most of her books in circulation--but she's no longer on the horticultural radar, so it's good to include her. (Although I suspect some folks will check her out because of Feud.)