Thanks for that, Jim. I agree and must admit that there's a lot I don't know about horticulture. I propogate heritage cultivars, mostly vegetables, some flowers, or whatever I can get my hands on and have the space for. I sell these to those gardeners you describe, and have found the same thing: they don't appreciate the value of these little gems, or the care that was put into growing them. Suzanne > Michelle wrote:"It's a shame that the horticultural trade does not > include dates on theirlabels, or a tiny amount of basic history relating > to a plant. Surely that > might make us, the consumers, see them in another light sometimes. It is > lamentable that such collective knowledge can be lost by "laisser faire"" > > I'm always amazed about how incurious so many gardeners are. When I meet a > new gardening friend, there are two things in particular I look for. You > might be surprised to learn that a plenteous collection of plants is not > one of them. The two things I look for are cold frames and a good > library. While I'm checking out the cold frames, I'm also listening to > see if the library has had any influence. The "collective knowledge" whose > apparent loss Michelle deplores is not lost at all - it's still there in > the old books. It's always surprising to me how poorly read most persons > in the horticultural community are - and those with undergraduate degrees > in horticulture are no exception. Until recently there was an > understandable excuse for this: the older literature was scattered and not > easily accessible. One of the recent developments that I'm really glad to > see is that some early twentieth century books and periodicals have been > scanned and made > available on line. If that continues, then we should experience a huge > surge in horticultural knowledge. > > Michelle is right though: as a culture we have lost this knowledge, if we > ever had it. It seems to be a rare gardener who reads anything but > catalogs these days. Most of the gardens I see are what I think of as > "farmer gardens" or "suburban sprawl gardens" or "hoarder gardens". To me > it's obvious that our primary gardening accomplishment, the thing we are > best at, is acquisition. I'm a stubborn old-timer in this regard: to me, a > pile of plants does not a garden make. And a pile of plants presided over > by someone who does not know the names of those plants might as well be > a pricey compost heap in my opinion. The worst ones are the ones who don't > know the names but sure can quote the catalog prices! > > Michelle also mentioned dates. My own appreciation of gardening has been > hugely enhanced by a fair grasp of when and how things happened. But a > preoccupation with dates can also lead to a sort of fanaticism, > reminiscent of those people who work quotations from Shakespeare or the > Bible into everyday conversation. Our knowledge of the dates of > introduction of many plants is comically inadequate. Self styled garden > historians often use dates of introduction based on the appearance of a > plant in one of the famous old herbals or other books. If you see the > dates 1597, 1601 or 1629, be suspicious: those are the dates respectively > of Gerard's Herball, Clusius' Historia and Parkinson's Paradisus. Those > citations might in fact be the first in the printed literature, but in > most cases the plants themselves almost certainly existed long before > that. Another pitfall with dates is that Americans, joined at the hip as > we were with England for so long, often take the > dates of introduction to England as the dates of introduction to America. > With many plants it can be difficult to determine if the date cited is > based on the date of commercial launch or the date the seed which > produced the plant germinated (to cite two extremes, extremes which in > the old days might be a decade apart). > > One of the big problems with dates is that it can be extremely difficult > to determine the identity of old plants. Of course you can recognize the > genus, and in unhybridized plants perhaps the species, but the more > granularity you expect in the identification, the more likely you are to > be off the mark. > > So dates are interesting, but I think they often need to be taken with a > grain of salt, especially the old ones. > > I like to collect plants introduced in my year of birth, something easy to > do with well documented plants such as roses and tulips. But I don't take > those dates too seriously. > > Jim McKenney > jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com > Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA > zone > 7 > My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ > <http://www.jimmckenney.com/> > BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ > Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS > Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org /<http://www.pvcnargs.org/> > Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/ > <http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/> > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/ > Suzanne Cook 311 Stevens Road Victoria, BC V9E 2J1 (250) 479-9478