Readers Speak Out
This week, I am in Fort Lauderdale attending the TPIE (Tropical Plant Industry Expo), looking for – you guessed it – new plants.
Imagine that.
While I walk the aisles searching for innovation, I would like to share some of letters I’ve received from readers in response to past e-letter issues. I love reading the responses, especially from my readers who read The Weeding Gnome right away.
Friday nights are so exciting because I get so many cool and often heated responses from readers who agree and sometimes disagree with my opinions.
No matter the opinion, I love reading them and I really do look forward to getting the comments, so keep them coming!
From the issue titled Gnomes Celebrate Christmas and Corn Ruins Your Engine, I received this thoughtful response from my longtime nursery buddy and one of the founders of North Creek Nurseries, and owner of the newly formed Green Light Plants, Dale Hendricks. Dale knows way more about being green than most people ever will. He has lived his entire life being green, so I do completely trust his comment to be well founded. I learned a lot from Dale’s comment. I hope you find it educational too.
“Hey wonderful Angie. I really love the Weeding Gnome and bless you for doing it. Anyway I want to add a bit of info about corn, engines + ethanol.
“First, corn is good! It’s just a question of how it’s grown. It’s a heavy feeder, and to grow it well and in a sustainable and carbon/planet friendly manner ideally it would be grown on a given plot of land perhaps every 3-4 years in a good crop rotation scheme.
“Corn is not bad (you can make this argument for any plant really, they’re just doing they’re job and sometimes in the wrong place….)it’s just usually grown in a nonrenewable manner that can be quite a problem for soils, water, the climate.
“Ethanol can be produced in a sustainable, renewable manner and the “leftovers” can be excellent animal feeds, fertilizers or can be used to grow mushrooms and many other good things. It’s just that these co-products are “pollutants” if they’re thrown away and at the same time can be quite valuable if they’re planned for and used well. Ethanol is basically liquid sunshine, a very green, completely renewable fuel that is a zillion times safer and better for our engines than gasoline.
“WHAT??? Yes, our cars are tuned for and maximized to gasoline but (many of the newer ones are “flex fuel” and can go with either fuel) can run much longer, cleaner and cooler on ethanol. Sure, cars can be screwed up by having to deal with varying proportions of gas/ethanol, but the ethanol itself is not the problem. It’s just a matter of design and tuning.
“Did you know that most if not all cars we’re “flex fuel” until prohibition and that most farmers produced a bit of their own ethanol until that time too???
“So, to recap: Corn is good, it just depends on how it’s grown (hooray for local/organic/diverse and sustainable agriculture!). Ethanol is good too, it just depends on what feed stocks it’s grown from and what’s done with the co-products. Ethanol is safer than gasoline and has the potential to be grown locally and renewably, it just rarely is. The simplest way I know to convey this is the old saying: “it’s always possible to do a good thing stupidly.”"
Wow! I had no idea, but I’m so glad Dale wrote in because now I know. There’s so much mis-information out there, and it’s not only about politics.
To sum it all up – it seems that even the corn that is used to produce ethanol is affected by proper growing practices. This gives buy organic and local a new meaning, doesn’t it?
In response to the issue titled Winter Hardy Echinaceas, You Betcha! I received this lovely vote of support for our introductions from Sandra Gerdes the manager of the test gardens at Better Homes and Gardens. If these plants can overwinter outside, in the ground in De Moines, Iowa, where the trial gardens are located – you can count on them being truly winter hardy just about anywhere. I love when an e-letter issue prompts testimonials like this.
“Just a note of support for Echinacea Hot Papaya. You gave me one from your booth at PPA in Philly last year(2008) and I hand-carried it back to Des Moines, IA and planted it in our BHG Test Garden. We have lots of clay so I put it on a slope to help with drainage. We had a cold winter last year (2 days of –19 F.) with very little snow cover.
“This year Hot Papaya bloomed in mid summer and threw out a few extra flowers later on. It was a great conversation piece on our public visitor days!
“This year I’ve added E. Coconut Lime, Meringue and Milkshake. I like to trial perennials for at least two seasons so I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for sharing your treasures with us for evaluation.”
Just today, I found out that Echinacea ‘Coconut Lime’ will be featured in the April issue of Better Homes and Gardens, so it must have done well When Sandra and the editors like a plant, they talk about it in the magazine. That’s the best kind of publicity we could ever ask for. Hooray Coconut Lime for Coconut Lime! Arie Blom, the breeder should be proud.
And finally, last week’s issue, Time to Change – My MANTS Epiphany drew lots of Amens and you go girl comments, but this one was great from April Herring, a member of the Texas Landscape and Nursery Association education committee.
“Great rant Angela! I too feel this industry moves at a snails pace with technology, it drives me mad! I think I am making some progress by being involved in the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association. I am on the Education committee and have mentioned this in our meetings. Next week we are having a conference all about technology. I hope all goes well! I will be sitting in as part of a panel discussion on the use of social media so I will mention your rant!
“One thing I still don’t get are people who still don’t even own a computer! The ol’, “I don’t do computers” will not work anymore. When I was chairman for the Houston region I went digital with our newsletter and got resistance from members because of they don’t use computers, these were people in retail! How do they communicate with their customers? Anyway I hope this conference opens the eyes of some of the Texas nursery industry.
“As for your marketing question, I think one way to market plants is through social media. Provide information through these sites to get people excited about your product, but it need to be in a personal way, not a sales pushy way. One example of a person doing very well with this concept is Pat Fitzgerald in Ireland, he does a fantastic job of this and has people across the globe wanting his plants. Lastly, keep up the good work, I love all the great plants you have! My co-worker Holly and I were talking in the booth about how cool some of the Echinaceas are!”
So, as I prepare to spend my last morning in sunny, warm Fort Lauderdale looking at new tropicals (sorry to rub it in…), I hope you enjoyed these comments. I enjoy them. Keep them coming, they keep it all real.
I look forward to reporting about this trade show and getting back to my new plants in next week’s issue.
Until next week…
Happy Weeding.
Angela Treadwell Palmer
President, Plants Nouveau