Plant choices we make

For those regular readers who have followed the progress of the proposed park on East Houston, I wrote a post for Garden Rant about the plant choices I made for the planting design...

In general, in life, I am one of those Everything in Moderation people. For this park I wanted to plant North American flora, and draw as much as possible from the Northeast. So my foreign introductions posed a bit of a dilemma.

Many informed gardeners are tired of the native versus exotic debate and ask, understandably, what is native anyway? Then I visit local nurseries, and find them selling highly invasive species, such as barberries, lythrum and Russian olive. There is a big disconnect between the world of selling, the average 'landscaper' and the world of discussion, and until the selling and landscaping world catch up (I am generalizing), this remains a pertinent issue.

I am at heart a plant collector, like my mother, but on a necessarily teenier scale. So that means I am always going to want roses, and lilies, or something New. But I am also excited by the challenges of native gardening and the possibilities it affords.