Window Boxes and Soap Boxes

John Friel

When people feel good, confident and secure, they look outward for new experiences. The horizon is merely a constantly-retreating line, a trick of perspective—something to boldly pierce just to see what lies beyond it.

Faced with uncertainty and real or imagined threats, people turn inward, sticking close to what they know. The horizon becomes ominous, a borderline in need of careful monitoring lest something evil be approaching from its far side.

When a society feels good and secure about itself, it reaches out for new experiences. No challenge is too great, no burden too heavy, for a confident nation. When a society feels insecure, threatened and full of self-doubt, it draws inward. Pioneers circled their wagons. Nations build walls at their borders.

We are living through a period when many Americans have become fearful of the wider world, where threats real and imagined abound. Travel to once-desired exotic destinations has dwindled. Simultaneously and ironically, foreign tourists are increasingly fearful of visiting the U.S. Haven’t you heard? There are riots in the streets. The cities are burning. And everybody has a gun!

What in the world does all that have to do with garden plants, garden centers and gardening? More than you might think. More than I used to think.

Gardening has been called the slowest of the performing arts. Whether or not you accept that definition, it’s undeniable that a garden is a form of self-expression—a living drama, comedy, poem, painting or sculpture that’s never really finished. And self-expression inevitably reflects, whether by embracing or by repudiating, the society in which the artist or—humor me—gardener presents it.

We are also living through a period when any plant whose ancestry and provenance do not fall within certain man-made political boundaries is suspect. The term “native” has become synonymous with “desirable” when applied to perennials, grasses and trees. Annuals are generally ignored because they have the good sense to die each year, but their time will come.

It’s true that as a nation we have long overlooked our native flora and it’s splendid that this oversight is being corrected. But there’s such a thing as overcorrecting; a pendulum can swing too far. Just ask Wall Street. There’s a fine line between native enthusiasm and what British pundits call “green xenophobia.” Too often, planting natives is shoved along by shaming or, worse, legislation.

My editor Ellen Wells notes that a new “top retail trends” list is loaded with terms like “authentic,” “rustic” and “retro.” She wonders, “What does that say about how people feel about today?”

We’re all susceptible to a dreamy yearning for simpler, safer times. Examined closely, the past rarely hits those marks. Tail fins and The Twist may make you long for the ’60s, but those happy days also featured legal racism, DDT and the Cuban missile crisis. Life doesn’t offer a drop-down menu where we can click only the desirable elements. History, like cable TV, comes as a package, including stuff you can’t use and wouldn’t choose. Hindsight may be 20/20, but it wears rose-colored glasses. Do I digress? Not really. Nostalgia rides shotgun with societal angst and rising calls for isolationism.

The rebel Thomas Jefferson declared, “The greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add an useful plant to its culture.”

Modern rebel Dale Hendricks of Green Light Plants, a quirky nursery growing mostly native ephemerals, says, “I grow natives to expand the available plant palette—not restrict it.”

Be a rebel: Welcome foreigners to your garden. It’s the American thing to do and it’ll feel good. GP

John Friel is marketing manager for Emerald Coast Growers and a freelance writer.