Planting it in a moist border is like inviting the Hell’s Angels to a choir outing!”Īs a nurseryman I will also mention the cost factors, both in future labor costs and in the need for chemical use to eradicate plants that ought not to have been planted. I find that there are some plants I really don’t like. It was but a challenge to get to know them better. Or as a British man said:” Not all plants belong in the choir of your garden.”) A Sweet William wrote that there was no plant he could not like. These plants should come with a warning label.Ĭonsider this lecture as my own warning label. Many are invasive, and often are poisonous plants as well. The Good, Bad and Ugly of the plant world.” Yes, there are plants I have come to hate. This is a gardening tale by a Nurseryman who is now eradicating many of the plants he once sold it might even be termed as a mea culpa or a sermon. I feel more people should feel equally protective about their own gardens – or to what they will leave behind. Why do nurseries get away with it? Don’t know, but if I went into an auto supply center and asked for oil and they gave me cheap paraffin: guess what – when the engine seized up I would be ticked off. There are a great many want-to-be gardeners who get demoralized because they are sold the wrong plants, given wrong advice or are simply not steered in a good direction. I am sounding much like that elitist Ann Lovejoy, and her talk down attitude to Neophyte gardeners. I figured anyone dumb enough to buy that deserves what they get. More interestingly I had not mentioned one super invasive weed, that being Oxalis. Look seriously at the ornamental merit of all your plants and avoid those that only create work opportunity for the gardener you hire. I could buy a dog or cat for that purpose. I don’t know about you, but when I plop a plant into the ground, I expect it to stay put and not to stray. With the cornucopia of plant material we are now introducing, some material is questionable and aside from the investment may well create future problems as we now discover that these “adventuresome” plants have become weeds requiring much labor and or herbicides to remove them from our aging landscape.ĭan Hinkley of the Heron people often used adventurous and other such descriptive s such as “ likes to travel”. My topic will be about bad judgment and improper placement as that is the type of guy I am. We are fortunate that they adapt well to their new homes and with good judgment and proper placement they can be a joy. Africa and Chile have become the new resource for plant introductions. Many are closely related to our own native American plants and are well adapted to our gardens. So many Chinese and Japanese plants are begging to be introduced into our American gardens. Those glaciers did not affect Asia as much. He speculated that the glacial editing we had in North America and Europe wiped out many specie of plants. Some 150 years ago, when American horticulture was still in its infancy Asa Gray of the Arnold Arboretum made note of the similarities of American plants and those of Asia. “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” Thomas Jefferson.
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