Re: Geroge Ball's talk at GWA Philly Flower Show

**jo ellen meyers sharp h*@sbcglobal.net**

What a great analogy! It's not just George Ball, however.

There's a letter to the editor of the Indiana Nursery & Landscape 
Assocation this month from Peter Orum of Midwest Groundcovers. It 
takes to task an article in the Illinois Landscape Contrator from GWA 
member Becke Davis about invasive plants.
He decries "misguided ideas about how to save the world from all the 
plant-people evilness..." He says it's time to "root out some of the 
nonsense."

He relates his 40 years' experience in the growing business, 
supplying "Chicagoland and midwestern states with groundcovers and 
many other plants, incluidng prairie plants and native. We have done 
more than most to help keep the earth, torn from the bulldozer of 
development, from eroding and becoming a wasteland. We have done this 
through providing the architects and landscapers with the right 
plants for the right plance. If some of the plant;s had not been 
aggressive, half of Chicagoland would be a moonscape today!," he 
writes.

"So what we need is education of what is the right plant for the 
right place, not pontificating by a bunch of people who have probably 
never tilled the earth, grown a plant to learn its habits, or solved 
a tough landscape problem. It is unconscionable that people can sit 
in ivory towers and write lists of plants they call invasive and then 
half half the country folliwng them like sheep. Maybe we should all 
read the fairy tale of The Emperor's New Clothes again," Orum writes.

jems

>Excellent editorial??? I'll grant you that George's NY Times native 
>plant rant is well-written. But his message is the horticultural 
>equivalent of Bill O'Reilly's "war on Christmas" campaign -- a 
>solution in search of a problem.
>
>The editorial in question was in the Sunday Times, Sec.4, p13, for 
>those interested.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: bbmackey <bbmackey@prodigy.net>
>To: Garden Writers -- GWL -- The Garden Writers Forum 
><gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:44:24 -0500
>Subject: Re: [GWL] Geroge Ball's talk at GWA Philly Flower Show
>
>
>Last Tuesday I was interviewed on Nellie Neal's radio show in Mississippi
>and one of my topics was trends and the Philadelphia Flower Show, so I
>picked up on some of the themes George Ball had mentioned.
>
>Also I saw George's excellent editorial on native plants in the New York
>Times -- Saturday I think.
>
>Betty Mackey
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-- 
Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
Garden writer, author, photographer
Region III Director Garden Writers Association
Phone: (317) 251.3261
Fax: (317) 251.8545
E-mail: hoosiergardener@sbcglobal.net

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