Re: More demons of ignorance, arrogance, and darkness

Right, I think it is the selection of natives that makes things look
unkept.  Margie Hunter has a wonderful book, Gardening with the Native
Plants of Tennessee.  I attended one of her seminars last year...she made
several interesting points, one of which was that you can often find a
native(s) that has qualities that you need and she illustrated it with
slides.  It seems that when some people think of native they think of a
meadow or priarie look, which can get rather 'ratty'.  
 


> [Original Message]
> From: Marge Talt <mtalt@hort.net>
> To: <gardenchat@hort.net>
> Date: 5/1/2006 1:41:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [CHAT] More demons of ignorance, arrogance, and darkness
>
> I'm with you, Jim.  VA, in particular, has been using some native
> plants along the interstates - rather nice in many instances tho' not
> so in some because they were put in via the block method which looks
> very artificial, but there's a lot of ground there that road medians
> don't have.  Native wildflowers are very often weedy looking at least
> in some stage of their growth each season and median strips need to
> be more in the tidy dept.  Something tough and tidy is what I'd
> recommend.  Too much emphasis on 'native only' at the government
> level; like many good ideas it's gone berserk and not grounded on
> practicality at all times.
>
> Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
> mtalt@hort.net
> Shadyside Garden Designs
>
> ----------
> > From: james singer <islandjim1@verizon.net>
> > I have mixed feelings about native plants-capes, especially in
> roadway 
> > medians and islands. Venice's main "gate" on the north end of town
> was, 
> > for years, landscaped with natives. Truthfully, it looked like an 
> > unimproved vacant lot at best and a weed patch at worst. Maybe if
> there 
> > were no vacant lots or weed patches around to liken it to, it might
>
> > have been perceived differently. Now, because they're widening the 
> > road, the native plantings have been ripped out; new landscape
> plans 
> > are yet to be announced.
> > 
> > Of interest, the main highway through town used to be more or less 
> > lined with a mismatched collection of native sabal palms. About 2
> years 
> > ago, the sabals were ripped out and replaced with matching
> "Medjool" 
> > date palms [imported from California].
>
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