Babianas and cold tolerance
totototo@telus.net (Tue, 22 Jan 2008 16:48:44 PST)

On 22 Jan 08, at 11:22, Jim McKenney wrote:

Just hold still for a few moments and I'll take care of that feeling.

[Experienced readers all know to go "uh-oh, rant ahead."]

Perhaps we are in a golden age of gardening, perhaps we're not. True,
the range of plant material is wider than ever, but there's a great
deal more to a garden than the plants in it.

No, I'm not referring to concrete work, statues, and fountains. What
I mean is that the plants *alone* do not make the garden.

Jim McK. and I might fortuitously grow exactly the same assemblage of
plants (Veriolitsis glomulama, anyone?), but our gardens will be
different. This would be true even if we lived next door to each
other.

It's fun to attempt growing "difficult" plants, but sometimes I think
we plant nuts, of whatever stripe, get so caught up in the plants
that we forget to look at the garden. Myself, I've been downsizing my
coldframe operation for a couple of years. I got tired of dozens, if
not hundreds, of dinky little pots holding seeds & seedlings, and
have been trying my best to get things out into the open garden. Some
are successes, some are failures, but with every pot planted out,
there's one less pot to disfigure the garden scene.

After all, didn't the ancient Persians, who invented ornamental
gardens, call them "paradises"?

Seems to me that a big issue (for some of us) is: how can obscure
and/or difficult plants add to the garden picture????

--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Maritime Zone 8, a cool Mediterranean climate

on beautiful Vancouver Island