I don’t think it’s right to call yourself a plantsperson. It’s one of those those words that has a sort of status to it but no actual firm meaning. Is a plantsperson a plant expert, or do they just own more plants than other gardeners?
Personally I think a plantsperson is someone who lives and breathes plants and gardens is knowledgeable and also keen to share that knowledge with others. I guess I probably am describing myself here, but maintain that the title of plantsperson should be conferred by others not awarded to oneself.
I rarely use the word to describe myself, even though quite a few of my fellow gardeners seem happy to use it to describe me. It just feels awkward, like awarding myself a prize. I suppose the best thing to do would be to make sure I deserve the kindness and respect of others.
A Plantsman’s Journey
I started my gardening journey the wrong way round.
I should have started with a few fairly easy and common plants, then built myself up to the rarer, more obscure, and harder to grow things. Instead I started with the rare plants and had to learn about more common plants as I began my career in horticulture.
Not everyone likes weird obscure plants
Not everyone likes rare and weird plants. Fortunately I had the good sense to realise this very early in my career.
A great number of gardeners love what some less charitable plantspeople might scornfully term the common plants. I had a startling realisation that common plants are actually very good.
Common plants are the ones that are easy to grow. They’re easy for nurseries to grow, they’re easy for gardeners to grow. These plants not only live but also perform well in a wide range of situations. They ask little but give a lot back.
My sort of garden, but it’s not very colourful
Common garden plants are the ones that have stood the test of time. How many new plants coming onto the market, with their bold labels and even bolder promises, will still be grown in five years time, let alone 10? The persistence of plants in cultivation comes down to gardener after gardener after gardener growing them, enjoying them, and recommending them to others.
A Plantsman’s Confession
As my knowledge has changed over the years, so have my tastes.
This shifting of tastes is a fundamental part of gardening for us all, with the possible exception of those who have their gardens built for them by a garden designer and who, for some utterly bizarre reason, feel that they cannot allow their gardens to evolve. Gardeners are drawn to new plants; some appeal because they’re perfect with what we’ve got already, while others appeal because they’re very different.
Not all plants are conspicuously beautiful
Because my gardening journey has been the wrong way round it feels as though I’m filling in gaps, both in my knowledge of and appreciation for different groups of plants. Right now I’m coming to appreciate pansies and bedding violets.
It’s taken me the best part of 30 years to appreciate why others find them appealing.
The range of colours, from white to blue, reddish-purple to yellow, covers most tastes. Modern varieties have come about as the result of decades, if not centuries, of diligent plant breeding.
Cheap and cheerful
The pansies are among the most liberated of garden plants. They’re fairly inexpensive, and you know that when you’re buying them that you won’t have them forever. They represent the very antithesis of my usual plant choices.
And above all they’re extraordinarily cheerful.
Pansies For The Future
In these ecologically enlightened times it’s a miracle that bedding plants haven’t been singled out for the wrath of the more extremist elements creeping into the world of gardening.
Certainly their popularity is declining; massed displays of bedding plants are now largely a thing of the past, but they are still used extensively in container gardening.
The question is how long container gardening will remain morally acceptable. Containers need watering and feeding by gardeners, but more fundamentally container gardening represents a very temporary, short-lived sort of gardening. Many bedding plants are quite demanding at the nursery – even hardier plants like pansies are pushed on to give them the longest flowering season – but are then thrown away months, or even weeks later. Not exactly sustainable.
Pansies are very cheerful plants, but not particularly sustainable
One day the hard-line ecological gardening movement will turn its attention to the bedding plant growers and these plants will probably end up crushed to oblivion.
But I do hope that bedding plants like pansies and primroses continue long into the future. With all the pearl-clutching that goes on in the gardening world these plants, especially with their gaudy colours, represent a sense of cheery optimism and joy that we so desperately need.
Nothing better than pansies (or my preference, the little violas).. They’re called “heart’s ease” for a good reason. Surely they will remain a garden favorite forever???
I certainly hope so.
“I don’t think it’s right to call yourself a plantsperson. It’s one of those those words that has a sort of status to it but no actual firm meaning. Is a plantsperson a plant expert, or do they just own more plants than other gardeners?”
This is certainly a discussion to be had. I understand that it could feel like flattering oneself – if you are a plantsperson or plantsman or woman.
But to some of us it denotes a potential limitation. A person who may not enjoy or appreciate a garden that aims to be more than a plant collection, a garden that maybe even wishes to speak to a world outside of gardening.
The begining of a discussion perhaps?
Yes, it can mean someone obsessed with plants to the exclusion of all other things.
I suppose it could be considered a limitation if one is only interested in design, but then, if that’s the case, the reverse is just as limiting. Besides there are plenty of plantsmen and women who are not only fascinated by plants but by design as well. -MW
This all feeds into the fact that there isn’t a definition. How planty do you need to be to be a plantsperson? I prefer to call myself a plant nerd; it’s less formal and weighted, and fits in with my hope that I never take myself too seriously!
To me, a plantsman is someone engaged in the trade of growing and selling plants. May not be an expert and may not actually tend gardens other than grow beds.
Not a definition I’ve heard, but there is no set definition so why not?
In the US this is an analog to seedsman, a (usually licensed) purveyor of seeds.
I know you said “morally acceptable” to be provocative, but if the day ever comes when some self-proclaimed gardening arbiter tells me I can’t have pansies, that’s when my well-sharpened tools will find a new use.
You guard the pansies for us; I’ll guard the daffodils.
It’s a deal!
Let’s get sharpening…
thank you.
I thought it was just me being weird…. glad I have company. In my mind, it is 100% a conferred title and a mark of respect when referring to someone who is extremely knowledgeable across many genera. I don’t even think one should have it in one’s bio because listed credentials or interests would naturally infer it. To be even more crochety, I prefer “plantsman” and “plantswoman” – though I’m sure I’ve been guilty of writing ‘plantsperson’ in some essay or other. –MW
It’s not a huge hurdle in these days of inclusivity, and easier to write than “plantsman and plantswoman” or “plantsmen and plantswomen” all the time.
Oh, you Plantnerds!
I am weighing in about pansies. One doesn’t have to throw them out at the end of the season. Even here in zone 5b pansies will overwinter. I love those happy “faces” and must have some every spring, just as I must have primroses. They don’t last more than a few years but that’s okay. I’m not a plantswoman, man or nerd but I know what I like. I especially like these rants!
Annuals are very useful within a border. In my Zone 8, cool-season annuals earn their keep from October through early May. So many color choices & so many ways to play with them! And, for crying out loud, what gardener wouldn’t or shouldn’t love having pockets of Zinnias or Pentas blooming in their garden from May through October? Only a dull gardener, I should think.
Lastly, having met dear Ben, thanks to Marianne, I hereby confer on him the title of “Plantsperson.”
He’s earned it.
My kids have pointed out to me that with the high cost of housing, young people have to rent or even just rent a room. For some of these young people, growing plants in containers is their only way to have some kind of growing experience. As long as housing remains unaffordable for so many, I think gardening in containers will continue to be popular.