Dear All: The question of National Collections should be, in my opinion, something the American Horticultural Society should foster. If others feel the same, drop a line to Kay Moss Warner the President at 7931 East Boulevard Drive, Alexandria VA 22308-1300 or call her at 800-777-7931, the fax = 703 768-8700 Their slogan is Making America a Nation of Gardeners, a Land of Gardens. Having National Collections is within their province. It will take, given the diversity of our land/climates, some doing, but it should be done. Cheers, John E. Bryan Jim McKenney wrote: > > Jane, thanks for broaching this topic. > > Believe me, I'm trying hard to keep what follows from becoming a rant. > > When I was a kid, I had this idea that I would start a garden club. Among > other things, each member would incur the responsibility to maintain stocks > of one particular plant for as long as they were members actively gardening. > > Years later, when in the late '60s I had just gotten out of the Army after > serving two years as a draftee medic and then enduring a family tragedy, I > needed a change. I grabbed my back pack and took off for the UK and Europe > for the summer. I visited lots of public gardens, took lots of photos and > had the horticultural education of my life. After that, things back home > looked, well, boring. We Americans spend a fortune on horticulture, but I > don't think we generally get good value for our money. > > Of the many and varied things I saw, the "order beds" at Oxford and Kew > made a huge impression on me. It's such a simple idea, and such a source of > intense interest and gratification to a certain type of gardening interest. > Yet try to fine something similar in an American public garden. We do some > aspects of this well: for instance, we have institutions which maintain > important collections such as the bonsai collection at the US National > Arboretum. My guess is that there are probably only five or six cities in > the world which can offer anything remotely comparable. > > But by and large, unless there is some mediagenic, star quality to the > enterprise, American public institutions don't seem to have done this well > yet. > > Where does the gardener go who wants to see a Heuchera collection, or a > Buddleja collection, or a tulip collection or an Allium collection? > Here in the Washington area we have several wonderful public gardens which > maintain an impressive diversity of plants. But these facilities are > maintained with a keen eye on the overall aesthetic effect - the ever > irrepressible American talent for enterprise insures that these gardens are > always ready to become revenue generating venues for weddings, parties and > so on. > Indeed, it's easy to get the impression that these gardens are run not with > the interests of keen gardeners in mind but rather with the expectations of > the least-common-denominator of gardening interest. I don't need to be > reminded that it is the taxes paid by the least-common-denominator crowd > which makes all of this possible; and I'm a firm believer that it will > eventually accrue to the good of us all to encourage an interest in > gardening at all levels. > But the way we are doing things now presents a strange irony: a lot of keen > gardeners find our public gardens irrelevant. > > I think a national collections program is a wonderful idea. And it would be > great if any such program included efforts to establish regional > mirror-image collections. > > I'm really fired up on this topic, but I'll stop here for now. I hope a lot > of others jump in with ideas and experiences - especially our UK friends > who now have years of experience running such programs. > > Jim McKenney > jimmckenney@starpower.net > Montgomery county, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, whose garden looks somewhat > like a national collection of something. > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php