Garden Reports and Rejoicing – February 3
And sometimes it’s difficult to say. Love it or hate it?
It’s been a very busy week, which you regular Whole Life Gardening readers have noticed because of the dearth of posts here. I was speaking, traveling, and at New England Grows in Boston. It was a very stimulating, satisfying, useful and exhausting week. I’m glad to be home and back in a normal routine of preparing for GardenLine tomorrow.
One of the regular features on my radio program is “I love this plant/I hate this plant.” The loves far outnumber the hates. As I gather my notes for the morning I keep remembering a group of Phalaenopsis orchids I saw at the Grow show. They were an electric, startling, unsettling blue blue blue. They were dyed and I think I hate them.
Don’t get me wrong…I have nothing against “color enhanced” plants. I love the spray painted, often glittery Poinsettias that are also done up in unbelievable colors for the holidays. I did some color enhancement myself one summer when it occurred to me that the brown Astilbe flowers could be made white again. Let me tell you, they looked fabulous until October.
Still, there is something that is not quite right about these Phalaenopsis. Somehow they don’t cross the line from dyed plant into playful art. Or maybe I’m just not used to them yet. I’ve often said that the plant that I badmouth one month is the one I can’t get enough of the next.
What do you think? Are they fun and fabulous or frightful and foul?
Are they too blue or not blue enough?
