Re: Speech By George Ball

**"Duane Campbell" d*@chilitech.net**

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jeff Ball" <jeffball@usol.com>
To: <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>

  Nancy and I have chatted over the topic of "the state of
> gardening in the U.S." and generally concede that the industry is on
> a downswing and gardening is on a downswing.

My observation over the last decade has been quite the opposite. For over 
ten years I judged a Country Garden Contest, which involved spending a week 
in July traveling around several rural counties from dawn to dusk in 
northern Pennsylvania in July. The gardens we judged changed little over the 
period. They were done by avid gardeners, and they were good at the 
beginning and at the end. What changed dramatically, year by year, were the 
thousands of more casual gardens we drove by in our wandering. In the 
beginning we would drive for miles and see little more than a line of sun 
baked hostas down the front walk. By the end we were seeing perhaps one 
house in ten where there had been real effort made in ornamental gardening, 
often with remarkable taste and design sense. They were small, compared to 
the generally larger gardens we were judging, but they showed real gardening 
rather than sticking some plants in the ground.

My readers run the gamut from the horticulturally crazed to those who think 
that maybe some day they'd like to put some plants in the ground, and I keep 
this range in mind whenever I write. I know that this could be the year that 
a few of them rip out the hostas and put an island bed on the corner. While 
the rest of you were attending the flower show, I was giving a talk at 
Longwood Gardens. It drew nearly 150 people, most in their middle years, and 
from the questions I could tell that most were just getting their feet wet, 
or muddy, and were eager for information. Sure, our job as garden writers is 
changing. I'm writing less about vegetables and marigolds and more about 
tropicals and landscaping. On the other hand, our job hasn't changed a bit. 
It is still to get the casual gardener enthused.

D 

_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
&quot;Gardenwriters on Gardening&quot; &lt;gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org&gt;

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters