CLOSED: Good Manners Among Gardeners

Hello, everyone. I know that the DG website has rules, but I think there are manners that go beyond rules. So, what are good manners for gardeners?
I can think of one immediately: Do not criticize another gardener's plants. This calls for diplomacy. You can't say "That plant is a worthless weed." You might say, "Gee, we have those growing wild here in Kalamonzoo."I still remember how stung I was when a neighbor said I had a "patch of weeds." I had just weeded! It turns out that because they didn't all look alike and all in rows or something, he assumed they were weeds. Weird looking weeds, but weeds. I took him around and introduced him to each plant, thinking "How DARE you call an achillia a weed! Roman soldiers used it...and there's a lambs' ear - colonists used it to polish furniture..."

One time I raved over a plant I had to a friend from the Phillipines. I gave her some seeds. As they grew, she kept looking and thinking...gee, they look familiar...then one day she came to work and said "We have that plant at home! It is Commantigue!"

I said, "What's that?" thinking that gee, it must exotic.

She said "Well, no...actually...it's just a native plant...it grows wild everywhere...it's like a Phillipino dandelion."

I said, "I don't care. It's beautiful!"

(American name: Balsam)

There is a happy ending. She said, "Well, something else grew from the seeds, too - and I REALLY like that."

It turned out that I got bellflower seeds mixed in with the Balsam seeds. And she has the bellflowers to this day and adores them. It had not occurred to me that she would even like bellflowers. I was so used to them that I didn't even think twice about them.

So...all of you who got seeds from me in seed swaps...don't be too surprised if I mess up sometimes...

So...what do you think constitutes good manners among gardeners?

Right you are BrightStar.
Up until this year, I had never been interested in "weeds" except how to get them out of my lawn.
But this year, I found my self scanning the roadsides looking for wild "weeds" and stopping, and snatching seeds, or digging up "weeds" to bring home and pot them up. Even stopping and taking a closer look in my own yard at "weeds" and the pretty little bugs they attract. Here's a compliment - Your weeds are beautiful.

As far as manners, If people don't have anything nice to say, they should keep quiet. ha.

It's good manners to always say thanks for a trade, and even more so to leave a nice and pleasant response in their feedback......

Have a nice weekend everyone.

This message was edited Nov 30, 2007 11:10 PM

And if someone admires your plants, share a cutting with them if at all possible.

Root a cutting for someone you love.

I was walking one day and saw a plant blooming in March in a lady's yard. She was out in the yard digging. I didn't know her, but I called out,"Excuse me, but that plant blooming is so pretty! And in early March, too! What is it?"

She said, "It's a money plant. Would you like some?" and yanked some up for me then and there.

Now, that's a lady.

We have been friends for years now, and I drop plants off on her doorstep sometimes.

The only difference in a wildflower and a weed is whether it is growing where you want it. I have lots of pretty weeds that outbloom some of the expensive plants I have purchased.

As I have grown older I have realized some of the "weeds" of my youth are butterfly hosts and I have developed a much greater appreciation for them. And how right you are BrightStar, many plants have some uses that I didn't know of earlier. Who knew that my dreaded nettle was so high in iron?

I have many bulbs and perennials that I have gotten from older gardeners from my past that were delighted to share the bounty. One simple white violet that blooms faithfully in my yard every Spring reminds me to call the elderly neighbor lady that shared it with me.

If I have lots of something I know to share it.. something I have learned from many generous gardeners that I have known, including many folks here from Dave's.

I have a small farm and sometimes will move a plant into a more protected area.. unless it seems to have it's own defense mechanisms ... Cows just don't like mullein. :) or lemon balm.. Even a goat won't eat lemon balm.

Great thread BrightStar

My husband calls my garden 'glorified weeds' but he also listens when neighbors tell me what a beautiful garden I have. I work hard in my garden and appreciate it when I get compliments. DH has started looking at the seed catalogs and picking out a few flowers for my 'glorified weed' patch. Just because it is a weed to some people it may be a prized flower to others.

All gardeners don't like the same things and don't plant the same way so it's never nice to criticize someone elses hard work.

One man/lady's weed is a another man/lady's treasure just like trash lol. I was taught not to criticize anyone period. So if someone has something they like, great for them! I dont know why some people have to take everything so personally and expect everyone to share or have thier opinion. Live and let live I say, and be happy because others are happy :) There are probably reasons why some weeds, insects, etc that are viewed to be "bad" exist. Perhaps we just don't know them all yet.....

Good points - everyone. I've also found whether it be plants or furnishing...just because it's not "my taste" doesn't mean I can't appreciate its beauty.

This message was edited Dec 2, 2007 3:52 PM

Has anyone ever gotten plants that crept over the fence from a neighbor's yard, and took root in your own. My neighbor had passionflower, and it crept under the cement of my driveway and sprung up about 20 feet from the original plant. I was pulling that thing up for years before it gave up. Like a horror movie - IT CAME FROM UNDER THE CEMENT...

LOL I can only imagine. I tell me neighbor to let me know if my plants become a bother and/or eyesore on her side and I'll take care of them.

And here I am trying to get Passionflower started. I love the smell of the flowers and the fruit. There are only a few types that are hardy here though so it probably won't go nuts.

Just don't plant it in the yard, dylancgc. It goes wild. Literally.

I had planted some seeds along with a plant I purchased from Wayside Garden. Being the impatient gardener that I am, I kept on digging to see if the plant was still alive because it wasn't growing fast enough for me. Not to mentioned that I was fertilizing and watering. I finally dug the plant up and took it to work to one of my garden experts at work only to be laughed at because she said I was growing and fertilizing weeds. I was made to look like a fool and I went home and dug everything up.
Lesson learned; don't do unto others what you endured and did not like yourself.

Also, I try being as honest as I can when giving away plants. Someone asked me for some of my purple basil and I warned her that she will have zillions of new plants unless she uprooted the plants before they go to seeds. So enjoy the color and fragrance until such time.

Velmansia,
I do my best to abide by honesty in packaging of seeds. However, I made a mistake when I was saving the bellflower and balsam seeds so long ago. These seeds were not a trade with my friend, but a gift of something for her to try. My friend was gracious enough not to condemn me over my shortcomings. That is why she is my friend.

Now that I'm trading, I'm more careful.

Not everyone is as adventurous as I am. I like nice surprises. It is the spice of life. When I order from Thompson and Morgan, my tradition is to order one pack of seeds that I have never heard of before. That's how I first encountered cuphrea. Happy ending! I loved it!

I try to keep up with all trades, maintaining communication. It's not easy though - time is short every day. But yes, I agree that trading does require manners among us. Following the 'trading guidelines' that are posted on Dave's has probably saved me some grief as a newbie. I didn't have ANY idea what I was doing a month ago. I still sometimes don't! LOL

And as for weeds... my favorite flower is a 'weed'. Chicory grows wild all over the northeast. It's 'planted' as a wildflower by the highway dept in Mass, where I spent my formative teenaged years. It grows with deep roots, blooms for a long time, and is nearly impossible to kill. Yet, you can't really 'pick' it - the flowers wilt quickly - and the scent and delicacy of the flowers can't be beat. It's delicate _and_ strong - I like that. It became my favorite flower as a teen, and it's been sadly hard to find in Jersey. They don't plant it like the Mass gov't does. *laugh*

Weeds are just plants people don't want. Anything can be a weed, to the right person.

-Sev

Well said, Sev.

One question, everyone: What is good manners regarding greenhouse-owners? Are there any special social rules for them?

If you're around other greenhouse-owners, is it bad form to say, "My greenhouse - oh, I mean the 10X20 one - has bit of a problem with its automatic windows..."

Is it like saying, "My car - oh, I mean the green Rolls, not one of the other ones..."

Do greenhouse-owners come across as snooty if they mention their greenhouses in public?

Or, "My greenhouse is a Haagen-Dais one, you know..." (said with nose up in the air).

I was just wondering what other people thought.

sevidra---
I, too, love the blue flowers of Chicory and have tried to dig and transplant :( But, I now have seeds (that I ordered) and have plenty. I could share some with you if you'd like?

There's another "weed" that is related to the hibiscus called "h. trionum" aka "flower-of-an-hour"---I also encourage this to grow in my garden :) and could also send you some of these seeds, freshly harvested from my garden, if you'd like...let me know!

Happy Gardening...Jan

this is a picture (from Wikipedia) of the h. trionum

You know, it's funny - I've not met many (well, _I_ haven't met _any_) gardeners who haven't fallen for at least one "weed". Just goes to show, I guess.

:)

-Sev
Jan, we should use D-mail - I don't want to post up the thread with seed trades.

sev---

sending you a dmail :)

Jan

jan, i wish you would send me some of those chicory seeds and some more h. trionums. i messed all of mine up this past spring and didn't get any plants. my favorite weed is eupatorium greggii. the butterflies love it too.

Hi mama-

do you want me to send them now?

Truly one person's weed is another's garden. As a landscaper I am frequently asked to create something unique for the family, but one woman with a very large back yard (easily 1/4 to 1/2 an acre) wanted a weed yard. When we were measuring and walking and talking about everything she wanted and wanted to do, she kept pointing out different weeds that she liked and ate (she has a delicate immune system) - and I wasn't to mess with any of them! The final design incorporated four large areas designated specifically for her weeds, for which I had found some online resources (both live and seed). We even left one patch specifically for dandelions as they were doing magnificently there :-)

She's a very eager gardener, willing to try just about anything and starts her own stuff from seeds. It's been great to hear from her on how her weeds are growing, which ones she's deciding to try each year, and the things she's used them for (potpourri, salads, garnishes, sauces, sandwiches, plucking and snacking while she's gardening.......).

As for gardening civility, I believe a "true" gardener understands that the joy is in the tending and caring, and trying to outwit pests and Mother Nature; as well as in the eventual harvest (whether it's for the mouth, the nose, the eyes, or the sense of touch). Passing negative judgment on what someone else has planted should be kept inside one's own head (unless you've been specifically asked for your opinion).

And I'm with you BrightStar on the whole greenhouse thing. I bought a little (6x8) thing so I could keep beloved annuals and do some seed-starting, and now find myself feeling self-conscious when talking with others when I say "Oh, I just put that in my greenhouse to see how it does over the winter". Does that come across as cocky or arrogant?

i came here to something about manners and i forgot when i saw the offer for seeds. lol.

mostly i have encountered good manners on daves and gw. i don't live in a neighborhood so i don't have to worry about neighbors. but people do stop at my house to see the plants. also, most people see that i am a one woman show and that my yard is a work in progress. this is the truth...3 Christmases ago i left the house to go shopping. while i was gone some man knocked on my door. my kids answered the door anyway...even though they had been told repeatedlly not to. this man didn't say much but he handed my son an envelope and told him to give it to me when i returned. when i got home my son gave me the envelope. inside were ten $100.00 bills with a note. it said that i was the hardest working person and that i deserved this gift. i have never found out who gave this to me. my kids were in trouble for opening the door. my son just didn't get why he was in trouble since we got $1000.00. lol.

my gardening motto, at least in this part of texas and for the scale i am working on, is that the yard has to look bad before it is going to look good. i cater to earthworms. hay,. straw, leaves, cardboard, compost beds all over the front yard. cover crops planted haphazardly with millet, corn...whatever comes up from the seeds i throw out in a new bed to be. so the worst manners come from kids talking to my kids. they pass by our house and see all the pots and the bags of leaves and the lasagna beds and the shovels and all they see is "junk". it hurts my kids feelings, esp. my 13 yr. old. i hope that at least by fall of next year i can move the whole operation to the side yard. and once the dirt is amended everywhere and all of the plants get moved to account for color, height, contrast, etc. that those same kids get the picture. and i hope that my daughter is able to "see" too that sometimes if you want something bad enough and you don't have the money to do it all at once things might not look so pretty at first but if you have the courage and the determination to be different then that will make all the difference.

Well done mamajack! I think what you're doing is one of the essences of gardening (and you're doing a fabulous job of teaching by example). And I love what you said: " the yard has to look bad before it is going to look good", that's true in so many ways! When your yard is the talk of the town, those other kids will have learned a valuable lesson as well.

yes, jan, i would love to winter sow the chicory so now is good. thank you.

and on the greenhouses...i am betting that every one on daves would love a greenhouse. i don't have one and i must admit when someone mentions their greenhouse, whatever it is, that my heart pauses for a second. this might just be me but it humbles me as my first thought is that these people must be SUPERPLANT people while i am just trying to grow 10 kinds of milkweed. lol. most people quickly add something like..."it's just a little contraption we threw together" or some such so that leads me to believe that most people with greenhouses get grief over having one so they feel they must downplay it. but i am hear to tell you that if i ever get a greenhouse i am going to shout it to the rooftops...not to one up anybody...but because i would be proud of it and maybe then i can try to grow some kind of south american milkweed. lol.

I think you're right about the general gardener-lust for greenhouses ;-) I had been wanting one for years and Costco had this small one for sale. I took a hard look at the finances and decided to make the leap (it was less than $800). I had to put it up myself, and found that a couple of the panels on the front weren't cut right so the darn front isn't squared - so the door doesn't close tight! (Yes, it was made in China......) My winter project will be to get the sucker to close! And, now that I have a greenhouse, I wonder how much complaining I'll be doing to myself about maintaining the greenhouse in addition to maintaining my yard - lol !! (Probably falls under that heading of "Be careful what you ask for....")

As to greenhouses, I agree with mama! If I had one, I'd be so proud of it. I never think people are arrogant for talking about them - I need to learn all I can, because someday, someyear, I will have one of my own (even if I have to build it from scratch myself, over ten years). I _want_ to hear about the problems, the difficulties. I _want_ to know what to expect. From what I've seen, this doesn't seem to be an alien mindset around here, either, so I wouldn't worry about talking about it. :)

-Sev

One of my next door neighbors earns big buck$ (as her husband does also) and every Spring she literally spends hundreds of dollars on expensive "Ready Grown" hanging baskets of the newest flowers and such. So her yard has an instant big impact and she has people come over oohing and ahhing over her "gardens and plants". Well, my seedlings/bulbs/plants are "wimpy" but, I nurture them and they start making their "statement" just as her expensive plants are dying out cause she really isn't a "true gardener". We have our yard completely fenced-in (cyclone fencing) so that our beagles (aka "the girls") can run and play and said neighbor planted nasturtiums on our fencing (which by the way, invaded our yard BIG TIME) because it's "ugly". Well, the fencing is on OUR property and then her sons and their friends can't take "shortcuts" thru our yard. It's difficult for me to say something but I finally did tell her that my husband didn't care for her planting on our fence (without asking our "permission")---but, I did remove her plants that invaded our yard (when she wasn't around :) and were growing all over on my plants. By the way, where she planted the "nasties" was where I had my Tropical Garden this year with EE's, Brugs, Cannas, Castor Beans and when all were growing you were totally unaware of the "ugly" fencing surrounding the garden. I actually gave her a healthy rooted brug for her garden and it broke my heart to see how neglected it became...but, I tried...

Anyhoo, by the end of summer, she and her friends were actually oohing and ahhing my garden. I even had some roses (clearance priced for $1.00 a couple of years ago) that were still blooming last week. My hubby was also impressed (finally!!!) with the gardens this year-even took pictures to show people and bragged about how my Castor Beans were 10' tall...

mama- years ago when I first started gardening I did as you are doing---the lasagne gardening---hubby was always complaining about how he didn't like the way it looked but, now, he is finally understanding that for the gardens to look nice they had to go thru that "transformation" unless he wanted to spend big bucks, which we don't have, like our neighbors.

i just hope the getting too good for me city of fate will leave me alone until the grand day arrives. lol.

Dryad57, in zone 5b you might need some extra insulation in the greenhouse for the winter for really cold nights. If you have an electric line there, a space heater, maybe? Or, bubble wrap draped over the plants for really cold nights. Some people use solar heating, which means basically water jugs, painted black to absorb heat during the day, then radiate it over the night. I don't know much about it. If you use a space heater, be careful, though! There is a new one that is supposed to be cool to the touch and can't be a fire hazard. Good luck!

Thank you BrightStar - I have recommended bubble wrap to clients, but do you think I would have even begun to consider it for myself??? Sheesh... And I do need a heater - but I won't hijack this thread anymore whining about my gh door that won't close (makes it easier for me to do some homework on a heater, since we've had a few nights of less than 20 degree weather). I'll move my whining over to the GH posts :-) and stay here for the seeds. Speaking of which, my sister may have some Toad Lily seeds - I'll check with her and forward them to anyone who's interested.

We've only been in our house one year, so dealing with leftovers from the former owner and handling all my clients didn't give me any chance to get set up for collecting any seeds other than the wildly-sprouting old Balsams - I have clients with historic yards so I'm always on the lookout for heirlooms and I had some white Balsams, so........). Let me tell you, being a landscaper and loving gardening is HARD - my yard is the classic Cobbler's Child...so much so I've taken my address off all my advertising!!

You have Balsam? Balsam seeds?

My golden rule is to not plant agressives/invasives in the yard. If something states it needs to be deadheaded to control seedlings, I go to my neighbor's and ask if they like the flower. If they do, I explain I try to deadhead, but may miss a few and they could end up with some. When you live right next to someone and you are aware of the agressive nature of some plants, it is not fair to submit them to your likes as they will probably end up with some of them, which can take years to get rid of. Common curtesy is the name of the game.

Too true pupil - I think one of the biggest examples of misunderstandings on how invasives actually are invasive is the dearly-beloved/dearly-hated Buddleia. Which is one of the reasons I try to be careful with the heirlooms I do use - talk about beautiful but invasive!

And yep, BrightStar, I have Impatiens balsamina (I think these are the ones called Touch Me Not, right?), in a variety of colors, as well as purple Malva sylvestris. I took pix of the plants while they were in bloom so I could have accurate color representations (well, as much as possible with digital) as there were three different shades of pink. Unfortunately I've no idea what the varieties/cultivars are, as I have not grown these before and they volunteered like mad in my yard from the previous owner. The person who had been hired to landscape this place years ago did a good job with a wide variety of perennials (centaurea, some great daylillies and iris, nice NE asters, bee balm, garden phlox - purple and white, echinacea, BE susans.....). Now that things are settling down a bit (gads, I shouldn't say things like that, tempting fate) I plan on doing some actual seed collecting next year of the nice things already in the yard, along with some things I'd love to plant in the Spring.

I'll track down the pix I took and match them up with the seeds - if anyone is interested in colored Impatiens balsamina just let me know! I'll dmail the pix so you can let me know which color(s) you want. (How many seeds are usually sent? I'm new to exchanging.)

Hi, Dryad 57. As far as the amount, oh, just a few pinches of seeds will do. Maybe half a teaspoon. Or more, if you have it. Usually here at Dave's they urge people to use bubble envelopes, but I don't think balsam seeds will need that because they are so small. So, half a teaspoon or so in a small sealed envelope inside a regular envelope addressed to me will do.

Well, what would you like for me to send you? A self-addressed stamped envelope? Some four-o'clock seeds? Some Hollyhock seeds?

BristStar, I'll dmail you the pix so you can let me know which ones you want. Hollyhock, eh? What color??? (she asks gleefully)

This message was edited Dec 8, 2007 11:47 AM

Well, I don't know. I got them in a trade 2007, a couple of months ago, and I got extra seed.

Also, if you are agreeable, I can throw in an extra mini-seedpack (only a few seeds) from a cream-colored carnation-like hollyhock mother. Not mine, but...well...OK, I admit it. It was in a flowerbed in front of an apartment house, and I was walking by...

(Bright hangs her head in shame...)

Oh! Can I have some purple malva seeds, too?