h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good one, Wilfrid.

A person can dabble in the garden, but alpines are addictive. Even in the quirky company of gardeners, alpine enthusiasts are in a class by themselves.

JTG

Perhaps that's why I've made it into the 'Most Overlooked' category

Not to worry, Wilfrid. All these young pups will get tired of their video games and their pop bands sooner or later and come looking for solace in the garden.

JTG

But where do they start, John? We (here making one or two assumptions ) grew up with Percy Thrower, Bill Sowerbutts, Geoffrey Smith and the good sound horticultural sense of Gardeners Question Time. If today's young pups turn to Garden Invaders etc etc etc for guidance, it's all water features, themed yellow-Zen-knot gardens, some new nematode treatment to cure parsnip plague, whatever the latest fad is. I even see people trying to grow Mediterranean borders in Huddersfield for Christssake!

They try gardening with the best of intentions, it fails because site, aspect, cultivation and plant selection have not been considered, so next year it gets paved over - what we call a Marshallite mulch.

Or perhaps I'm just a pessimist

No, it's the same here. But, thinking back, a lot of what I did was pretty nonsensical to start off with... still is, some might say.

It is depressing though to see so many TV garden evangelists talking a lot of rubbish as if it came from the Almighty. The real shame, as you say, is that a lot will take their advice literally, fail hopelessly, and give up.

On the bright side, maybe something new and exciting will emerge from all the silliness. The last ten years or so have seen a boom in gardening interest in Southern Ontario, a lot of which has manifested in plastic ponds and quarried limestone that looks like it fell off a truck... which it did, of course. But once the bug bites, a lot have obviously made the effort to learn more. The evidence is in the growing choices (ahem) at the garden centres.

JTG

I still tend to go to the specialist nurseries for my bits and pieces.

It's taken me the best part of a season to decide that I need Rhododendron schlippenbachii to fill a particular awkward slot in the border; for size, form, colour of flower and leaf, nothing else will do. I will probably have to drive up to Muncaster Castle to get it, but I can take the family, and have a nice day or weekend perhaps in the Lakes.

Alternatively, the local garden centres were stocking R. 'Northern Lights' last year which would almost do except there's a bit too much pink in the flower to sit comfortably alongside its neighbours. But if I settled for the compromise, would it be there this season? These places are like Microsoft: every two years it's all change with the varieties.

My fear is that in a few years time, the old codgers who keep the specialist nurseries going will no longer be there, and the best plants, particularly the species, will no longer be available.

That's a real concern. The trend towards patent-protected plants is worrisome too. I suppose it is optimistic to imagine that experience will automatically result in sophistication... it doesn't seem to work that way in other aspects of pop culture, after all.

I do think that the taste for specialty gardening, such as the current butterfly craze in Ontario, may help the small nurseries to some extent. There is a growing sensitivity towards harmonizing artificial landscapes within their natural context here... about 20 years behind the Europeans again, but there you have it.

There are a lot of fairly small specialty growers in Ontario (hemerocallis, herbs, paeonies, etc.), which seem to be thriving on the snob appeal that gardening success presently enjoys here, if nothing else.