“Was I being judgmental? Yes, yes I was.” Love all of this. Thank you for the audio. I thought it was great. I went to our local plant sale Saturday and also experienced frustration for similar but also different reasons. I was looking for Native plants, and the plants they had were labeled, pollinators, bee friendly, deer resistant etc., but no labels for native species. I know something about which plants are native here but I was hoping to find some new to me native plants etc. I asked one of the volunteers about a plant, and he said, well it says it grows in this zone, so I would assume that would mean it was native, and I looked at him and said you know what happens when you assume. “Was I being judgmental? Yes, yes I was.” To his credit, we looked it up together having that information at our fingertips, and it was indeed not native so I stuck with safe bets that day, cone flowers, yarrow, asters and goldenrod. I am going to try and connect with the plant sale folks to see if we can highlight native plants in next year’s sale.
As for you being a plant snob, I think we need more plant snobs. I sometimes think my family consists of food snobs because we take our time and cook real food. I wonder if we have lost our way if such simple things that return us to the gifts of the earth can be considered snobbery.
In my experience, our local native plants aren’t as showy and colourful as the hybrid varieties, they may not be in bloom or as large (often because they lack chemical fert) at the time of sale and they don’t have bright photo labels with planting info.
Nursery owners here, seem to be either, carrying just a few with their other stock or specializing in natives only. It seems to have grown into a niche market, but I’m betting things will flip. As consumers become more aware of ecological practices, I feel like they’ll start to reject the old style (import, chemical and plastic based) systems. But as always, one step at a time 💚
My wife Lura has been buying native plants for as long as I can remember. It just makes good practical sense. Which I'm told is a celebrated way of being here in the Lone Star State.
“Was I being judgmental? Yes, yes I was.” Love all of this. Thank you for the audio. I thought it was great. I went to our local plant sale Saturday and also experienced frustration for similar but also different reasons. I was looking for Native plants, and the plants they had were labeled, pollinators, bee friendly, deer resistant etc., but no labels for native species. I know something about which plants are native here but I was hoping to find some new to me native plants etc. I asked one of the volunteers about a plant, and he said, well it says it grows in this zone, so I would assume that would mean it was native, and I looked at him and said you know what happens when you assume. “Was I being judgmental? Yes, yes I was.” To his credit, we looked it up together having that information at our fingertips, and it was indeed not native so I stuck with safe bets that day, cone flowers, yarrow, asters and goldenrod. I am going to try and connect with the plant sale folks to see if we can highlight native plants in next year’s sale.
As for you being a plant snob, I think we need more plant snobs. I sometimes think my family consists of food snobs because we take our time and cook real food. I wonder if we have lost our way if such simple things that return us to the gifts of the earth can be considered snobbery.
In my experience, our local native plants aren’t as showy and colourful as the hybrid varieties, they may not be in bloom or as large (often because they lack chemical fert) at the time of sale and they don’t have bright photo labels with planting info.
Nursery owners here, seem to be either, carrying just a few with their other stock or specializing in natives only. It seems to have grown into a niche market, but I’m betting things will flip. As consumers become more aware of ecological practices, I feel like they’ll start to reject the old style (import, chemical and plastic based) systems. But as always, one step at a time 💚
My wife Lura has been buying native plants for as long as I can remember. It just makes good practical sense. Which I'm told is a celebrated way of being here in the Lone Star State.