free digger
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Say what?
Anne Raver’s article in today’s NY Times on ”What the Nurseries Like for Spring” has her typical lack of rigor. She runs through all of the over-hybridized, alien-colored cultivars being promoted by the wholesale nursery trade this year. A bonsai dawn redwood. A false indigo that blooms yellow. Hibiscus hardy to 30 below. Why do we need these? She would probably answer that they’re showy and stand up to tough conditions. Ok, just say that. But she ends the article with a pollyannish statement:
I left the show with an optimistic feeling: maybe the gloom and doom of global warming and high fuel costs have given us gardeners a road map to smaller, hardier gardens that give back to, rather than take from, the earth.
Oh, so there’s a bright side to global warming. Chartreuse-colored coral bells.
Hey Anne, I’ll take the polar bears.
One thing she does right is call out the wonders of Edgeworthia chrysantha. Juniper and I saw a specimen at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden just this Saturday. Very nifty. A plant that blooms in January that looks seasonally appropriate.