We just sent our first summer issue off to press (look for it soon). If you are a reader or a regular subscriber, you know that May/June is our garden issue—which means we run a garden feature as well as several pages of garden trend and service stories. To prep for that, I went to a horticulture trade show earlier this year. Jeannette Cooperman, our staff writer, was there as well...she wrote up the Plant Fashion Show. Yes, you read right. There was a runway and everything. It is not as strange as it sounds, because every year, nurseries debut new plants the way designers unveil collections. The difference being nurseries are working not with fabric and thread but living things, whose genes they have manipulated in some Mendellian manner.
The 2011 vegetal version of the Birkin Bag is the Black Velvet Petunia, developed by Ball Horticulture. Breeders have never managed to cultivate a true black petunia until now, so there is a huge buzz around this little flower. In fact, I think its appearance is what triggered the trend forecast for black, purple, or striped or striated annuals for 2011 (just like Gnomeo and Juliet created a new market for garden gnomes).
In addition to a fever for black petunias, horticulturists predicted a slowing of the green landscaping; they said the new trend was mixing annuals with natives. Despite a growing movement toward "lawn reform," all of them argued that the presence of turfgrass was necessary and desirable in most landscapes. A recent article in The New York Times, "Heirloom Seeds or Flinty Hybrids?" also hints of some resistance to eco-friendly gardening. There are definitely problems with being a plant purist (a topic I touched on back in January), and there is nothing inherently wrong with black petunias. But abandoning super sustainable landscaping just because it is trendy to do so just seems...well, considering how depleted many of our resources are, from clean water to phosphorus, really ill-advised. So why all this pushback towards doing things the higher-impact way?
Well, though horticulturists are plant lovers (and ostensibly nature lovers), their right to sleep in a warm bed and eat regularly depends on their ability to move a lot of plants out of the nursery. Annuals, which you have to replant each year, are obviously very helpful on this count. It's easy to have a reformer's zeal about ripping up your lawn, or using native annuals that require little upkeep, when you're a CPA with a yard that has nothing to do with your livelihood. The sad thing is that breeders, nurseries and horticulturists are stuck in a system that forces them to think like shoe wholesalers. And really, on a planet with rapidly diminishing resources, shoe wholesalers shouldn't have to think like shoe wholesalers. On the black velvet petunia page, For instance, there is this bit of copy: "Garden writers are sure to pick up on this innovative black petunia and drive up consumer demand... National publicity will have consumers clamoring for Black Velvet and is a sure bet to build retail sales." They write about how hardy and easy it is to grow, too, but in order to make money on plants, you have to spend money. It's the same cycle you see in pharmaceuticals, fashion, and Hollywood. Still, I really appreciate Bell's honesty. In contrast, take this bit of skullduggery, posted courtesy of Garden Rant on the character "Turf Mutt," a superhero dog who shills for the lawn and lawn care industry, and whose M.O. is to indoctrinate future homeowners, and to convince them that a patch of turf is a green thing both literally and figuratively, when truly there are often better options out there, at least when environmental sensitivity is concerned, like many of the grasses recommended by the Missouri Botanical Garden's Plants of Merit program.
The other sad thing is that the horticulture industry is like, so missing the boat! I mean where making lots of money is concerned. The nativist movement is only getting stronger. The New York Times reports that more young people than ever are taking up farming, often for ecological reasons. (And becoming a farmer is not something you can do half-heartedly.) Things like farmer's markets, artisan chocolatiers, and charcuterie don't show any signs of going away soon. (Hell, even the dowdy practice of canning is now hip.) What I would take away from this: younger people seem to see ecologically sensitive living (including eating and gardening) as just a way to live, rather than as a trend that ebbs and flows. And when they move into houses, and start working on their yards, they're not going to follow the same patterns that Grandma So-and-So is following right now, with her little paving-stone circles filled with pansies and saliva. And I predict that they will still reject lawns, no matter how impatiently that double agent Turf Mutt paws at their back doors.
As I mentioned in that January post, one of the best gardening books I have ever read is Gardening When it Counts by Steve Solomon, founder of Territorial Seed Co., and curator of the Soil and Health library. Solomon recommends people approach gardening with a clear head: do what works. Sometimes that means planting heirlooms, other times "flinty hybrids." Solomon would probably consider a petunia bed of any sort a waste of space, but I think people can plant flowers and vegetables; after all, ornamental gardens date back to Biblical days and we've been experimenting with gene expression in plants longer than many heirloom seed varieties currently on the market have been in existence (Luther Burbank died in the 20s, after all).
What is really seems to be the future of horticulture (my prediction, anyway) is not a preservation of turfgrass at all costs, or an invitation to plant annuals to tarnation. I think what we'll see in the next little while is something similar to the philosophy of Scott and Lauren Ogden, who posit that if nature is anything, it is not simple. (Even a lawn, with its Baroque rhizome root system, is not simple.) I love Garden Rant, so I am linking to them again, to a book review of the Ogden's Plant-Driven Design. In that book, the Ogdens make a plea for common sense and inclusiveness (yes, that could be annuals and natives, and even some well-manage invasives in some cases). Though Solomon is all about soil health and vegetable gardening, I think he would agree with the Ogdens here: for best possible results, look at the world from the plant's point of view, rather than trying to force it to accommodate your human agenda. And speaking of human agendas, we forget that there is more in this web than just us, and the plants...there are insects, birds, and animals that are affected by what we do or do not plant (see this for more on that concept). So, plant your black velvet petunias—but do it with consciousness.
