RE: Today's purchases > Labels
perennials@hort.net
  • Subject: RE: Today's purchases > Labels
  • From: &* B* <e*@rewrite.hort.net>
  • Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 15:52:41 -0400
Chris
If you remember Pogo... he said something to the effect that "I have seen the 
enemy and he is us". 
We all want high wages and cheap products... that is what we are getting when 
and where we choose to shop.
Can I have an amen.
Gene

Gene E. Bush
Shade Garden Correspondent
Gardener - Writer - Photographer -  Speaker
www.shadegardenexpert.com

New eBook: Shade Garden Solutions 



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-perennials@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf 
Of Christopher P. Lindsey
Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2015 2:03 PM
To: perennials@hort.net
Subject: Re: Today's purchases > Labels

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kitty Morrissy" <1018@rewrite.hort.net>

> I agree, itâs sad. Another tell-tale as to the direction the gardening 
> industry is headed is mulch. Here, all the ads and even the bag labels 
> refer simply to the color â who cares whatâs in the bag?

Wood pallets and nails dyed blood red so your puncture wounds don't discolor 
your mulch.  :)

> The city I live in has a pop of 256,496 (county is 363,014) . Every 
> year the newspapers run a âcontestâ in which people vote for their 
> favorite restaurant, hardware store, grocery, whatever. A local 
> nursery won it for 10 years running but then he went out of business. 
> Last year, voted as the best nursery, was Menards. Really?

Gardening seems to be entering a sort of 'Dark Ages' everywhere that I look.  
I still can't figure out if it's consumer-driven, industry-driven, or both.  

There are definitely niche markets out there and specialty mailorder 
nurseries can fill those needs, but the big box stores just provide the 
easy-to-grow common stuff that can be mass-produced.  Every once in a while 
they'll have a gem, but the price will be too high to make it worthwhile.

Most 'gardeners' that I talk to nowadays aren't particularly interested in 
plant names either.  They just want something pretty, and if it dies they'll 
just go buy another cheap one.

The biggest problem I see is with mis- or under-informed people in the 
industry.  I was at a greenhouse yesterday where the worker told the customer 
that kale was a perennial here, so she could just buy one plant and keep 
harvesting kale for years to come.  Even if the temperatures were warm enough 
here they'd only be biennial...

The place that had cheap perennials yesterday hadn't hardened them off 
outside, either.  They had been in a greenhouse and brought out immediately; 
when I asked if I needed to bring them in at night the worker thought that 
might be a good idea for the first few days.  
Good thing I asked!!!

I earned my undergraduate degree in Landscape Architecture from the 
University of Illinois, and I earned my Master's in Horticulture from the 
same place.  We had to take two semesters of classes on woody plants, another 
semester on perennials, a semester of nursery production...

Now the classes are being cut back. The University focuses on environmental 
sciences and not on nursery production.  Horticulture students no longer take 
the woody plant class, so only the landscape architecture students are doing 
it.  Unfortunately, that has been cut to only one semester, so instead of 
learning 800 species of trees, shrubs, and vines they're learning about 400. 

Even the campus Operations and Maintenance department is failing.  
They handle all of the new plantings on campus, but they've stopped keeping 
track of what's planted where.  There are no records indicating where a tree 
came from, what cultivar it is, when it
was planted, or anything.   It's just not deemed to be important
any more.

I'm hoping that gardening can be sexy again (and not in a yesterday was World 
Naked Gardening Day way).  Hopefully the economy will come back, people will 
have more time to garden, and more Dan Hinkleys will give us what we're all 
craving.  :)

I think I just ranted.  Sorry...

Chris

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