Re: "Native Plants"
- To: s*@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
- Subject: Re: [SG] "Native Plants"
- From: S* W*
- Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2000 23:33:04 -0400
At 11:29 PM 4/27/2000 EDT, you wrote:
>In a message dated 4/25/00 9:35:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time, smwei@UMICH.EDU
>writes:
>
><< garden (what, hack down the Japanese Maple I just lovingly and sweatingly
> transplanted, send the daffodils back to Spain?), just as I see no need to
> read or teach only native authors or decorate my walls with native
> paintings (anybody who's seen the horror of the Ann Arbor Art Fair will
> know what I'm talking about). Third, I'm sympathetic to those who like
> native plants, but to me, gardening is about play and fancy, experiment
> (i.e. both failure and triumph), surprise and escape. >>
>
>Silke,
>
>I was interested in your posting, part above. More interesting is the lack
>of response. Some time ago, I attended a talk by Michael Pollan ("Second
>Nature") on this subject. I know of no major public garden that confines
>itself to native plants.
Me, neither -- I do lovingly recall wild areas where I grew up, but I think
the very concept of "garden" implies interference with nature and the
native -- be it soil amendment, grouping, thinning, or choice of plants. I
can see wanting a "native garden" as another interesting experiment in
self-restriction, but not as the horticultural equivalent of moral
superiority.
...
>
>One might explore native plants, shrubbery especially, if a site proves
>difficult to plant with non-natives.
Oh, absolutely -- many native plants are, after all, incredibly beautiful.
>Preservation of native plants, it seems to me, is a different subject.
Yes, I agree.
Silke
