Plant snobbery

I have a confession.

I've been a plant snob.

For years, nothing but the latest and greatest varieties were ever invited to participate in my glorious ensemble. Everything else was much too mundane. So 'been there, done that.' So red geranium.

But with time I've discovered something: Those premium plants came at a premium price -- both in terms of dollars and cents and in terms of time spent tending them. Rarely available locally, the new specimens I'd get by mail order came in 3-inch pots and took years to establish themselves. (If they even survived.) And as often as not, once they did reach maturity, it became evident that they couldn't live up to all the catalog hype. (Probably my most painful lesson came when I paid a total of $60 -- including shipping -- for one "Little Honey" oakleaf hydrangea. Three years later, that shrub is still six inches tall.)

Not that all new plants are bad of, course. I've already professed my love for geranium 'Rozanne' many times. I guess I'm just coming to realize that not all OLD plants are bad either; that there's a reason why some of the standbys have remained popular for decades.

I'm also learning that gardening is not really about the specific plants that you grow anyway. It's much more about how and why you use specific plants.

That idea was really brought home to me as we started loading photos onto the O&E online photo gallery. With even a cursory glance through those pictures it's easy to see that a garden is more about a gardener's own personality than about specific plants. Ten gardeners can use the very same plants and come up with 10 very different gardens.

I find that really exciting. Much more exciting than waiting for the next batch of new introductions. (But don't hold me to that in January when the new catalogs hit my mailbox... ;0)