In article , Pam wrote:

paghat wrote:

In article , Pam wrote:


Not sure why you persistently equate hobby gardening with a know-nothing
grubby
laborer.

I don't; YOUR attitude toward Ciscoe (which you've ammended, & that's
appreciated) was underscored with his being merely a hobby gardener, &
when Val said someone should invite him to this ng, your reply was
"Heavens preserve us!!" -- that's pretty unambiguous, you didn't want
someone you perceived as a hobby gardener hanging around here, though
mainly we're the only ones who do. Your attitude. Not mine. So don't
project.

Your words: "another worthlessly grubby "hobby gardener" , "merely a
dumb-old-hobby-gardener ". The negative descriptors are yours, not mine.

Okay, you've convinced me at least you lack even a rudimentary sense of
irony when you see your statements reflected back at you rephrased for
effect, & I'm sure many of our disagreements have in fact grown out of
that limited capacity.

But you failed to convince me of anything else except your
over-sensitivity that doth protest too much when insisting on the greatest
of all gardening expertise being found in retail centers. Just doesn't
wash; it takes no gardening skill to sell what other people grew. Your
admittedly "kneejerk" assessment of Ciscoe as so devoid of knowledge & he
had to call a RETAIL center for assistance suggests even you suspect
retail centers are a stupid source of info.

I know a half-dozen EXTREMELY knowledgeable nursery owners & a
couple equally knowledgeable employees, but they're the distinct minority.
The knowledgeable horticulturalists tend to have university affiliations,
or are hybridizers & growers rather than retailers -- a knowledgeable
horticulturalist in a retail nursery is rather like spotting a high-end
chef flipping Herfy burgers. None of which assesses you personally in
anyway, & you're overreaching to imagine yourself insulted but a merely
factual if overgeneralized observation.

This is a pretty symptomatic statement about what you don't know about
horticulture
and the nursery business. If you were to pass it off as your opinion,

As an accurate observation frankly. I visit nurseries far & wide as
side-jaunts to bookscouting throughout the Northwest. I report what
exists.

that's fine,
but you make the statement as though it were fact. I can list a dozen
nurseries in
the area off the top of my head with degreed horticulturists on staff
and in this
area,

So what? You're replying to a paragraph in which I said exactly the same
thing. The occasional owner or hireling with at least a minor degree
doesn't change who the vast majority of nursery workers actually are. I
don't despise them for it being a fact; but it's a fact.

extremely knowledgeable nursery staff is the rule rather than the exception,
unless you frequent box stores and discounters rather than retail
nurseries. Why you
think qualified horticulturists are restricted to universities is beyond my
understanding. Horticulture is simply the science of plant husbandry and
can be
applied to any aspect of the green industry.

But only in RETAILING what others grow can one participate without any
knowledge whatsoever about plants.

I know any number of degreed
horticulturists that wholesale fertilizers and soil amendments, even
garden tools
and haven't been anywhere close to a university since they graduated and
the closest
they get to a plant is when they walk by one. Like any profession, the
more you
know, the more likely you are to be hired for a position. My seasonal hiring
resources included resumes from several individuals with Masters of Landscape
Architecture degrees, college educated horticulturists, even a
propagator of native
plants with a PhD in botany. Anyway you look at it, horticulture is a
relatively
underpaid profession and the current job market is tough and qualified
and highly
trained but unemployed horticulturists, botanists and landscape
designers abound.
Factual, no - over generalized, indeed.

pam - gardengal

I'm going to pretend I believe you that YOUR boss only lets you hire
Doctors of Botany whose highest goal in life has been to be garden store
retailers & achieved their life's ambition because you are in charge of
the hiring. It would make your nursery a novel place indeed, & it wouldn't
change the greater reality that I expressed accurately.

I won't even resort to the "discount" places you allude to as the places
that do fit my overview. In fact Lowe's DOES require at least a high
school education, & for managers some college as well, so one has to look
in the sorts of nurseries you laud to find the real comedy winners. Below
I shall list namelessly some actual nursery workers who are far more
representative of the trade than your vastly more absurd assertion that
Doctors of Botany are the primary retail workers in garden centers. It
would be fun to exaggerate these characters, but interestingly, it is not
necessary to exaggerate; the following are real people with long-term
retail experience:

#1: A pothead, ex bankteller, charming as all get-out, can answer any
question relating to gardening in a trice -- but never correctly. He
thought the Brazillian verbanum growing wild all over the edges of his
nursery was saint johns wort, & he labeled a tray of cotoneasters "vinca
minor." The nursery was founded in the 1950s & he's run it for about
one-fifth of its life (I don't believe it will survive him). He's
apparently too happily stoned for new knowledge to sink in, but in his
bumbling way he tries, & I'm not making fun of him.

#2. A woman periodically institutionalized, with an obsessive-compulsive
horror of weeds sticking out of cracks in sidewalks, so that she has to
spend her lunchbreaks & off-hours clearing grass out of sidewalk cracks
near the nursery & near her house. By NO means the craziest nursery worker
around, but definitively certifiable, & yes, reasonably knowledgeable. If
you don't get her on to the topic of weeds in sidewalk cracks, she seems
only moderately eccentric, & at worst you'd wonder why she suddenly
started volunteering stuff about her sex life. But when cracks in
sidewalks spring back to mind, you know she's nuts. Likely would not be
employable anywhere else but in a nursery, not anywhere else pleasant at
least. So it really is a good thing there's a job that even crazy people
can do without needing any actual schooling for it.

#3. A religious fanatic too poor to get a bridge for his missing front
teeth, arrested for trying to kill his estranged wife, but turned up in a
town paper interviewed for his "expertise" in landscaping, though no one
he ever landscaped for was satisfied & the only thing that kept him from
getting sued is that he lived off & on in his truck so what's the point of
suing someone with nothing but a bunged up truck. After seven years
working for one nursery they finally fired him not because of his limited
skill but because he began to menace the young woman who became manager,
as he angrily believed his seniority should have placed him in the job. He
shares one feature in common with you: A fanatical belief that vast
gardening knowledge exists in retail establishments -- primarily evidenced
by himself. I'm sure some other nursery somewhere will hire him, it's not
like he'd be weirder than the rest.

#4. A young man managing a satellite nursery for a big company, doing a
good job, not particularly knowledgeable, has his own side-business
wholesaling native plants taken from the wild wherever he dares. Got into
it that end of the business when still a pre-teen helping a poacher one
summer, liked the work, tried to approach it legally. Has all the requisit
liscense to collect from the wild, but easily lets slip it's really a
lisense to steal, since if you can get out the national forest with the
profitable freebies, you can claim you got that stuff somewhere legal.

#5. A teenager whom a knowledgeable nursery owner hired primarily for the
lad's beauty, & though not very knowledgeable yet, the boy may actually
gain a great deal of knowledge by this liason in time, if his cornhole
doesn't wear out first.

#6. A severe alcoholic with a good deal of nursery experience in a
half-dozen cities (just don't ask why he keeps having to get out of yet
another town). Scored a temporary job managing a nursery while the owner
was sick, & used his complete liberty during the crisis to have a blow-out
sale, pocketing the money, then closed the place & went on a bender,
afterward resorting to tears & begging with big promises of making it
good, to convince a goodhearted sucker not to pursue criminal charges. (He
also robbed the goodhearted sucker's house but swears a drinking buddy did
it though there's no proof either way. Yet I swear, anyone who visited the
nursery while he was running it, even realizing he seemed to be drunk,
would've really liked the guy. Possibly as knowledgeable as you or I, not
outrageously stupid about it anyway, merely criminal.)

#7. A "slow" young man who was hired primarily because he had a truck &
could be sent on deliveries, & was strong enough to move a fairly large
potted trees about, over time learned to interact with public well, so
deserves the job, despite that the only qualification was having a truck.

#8. An old man who for whatever reasons couldn't stay retired, reliable
worker, takes good care of plants at a leading & first-rate nursery, but
knows next to nothing beyond how to water the plants. Ask him anything,
simple or obscure, he calls someone else over to give the answer. Sweet
guy. I wouldn't fire him. He's not an addict, not a thief, & not one
sidewalk crack away from institutionalization, so he's actually high-end
as garden center workers go!

I could of course also list the sorts of nursery owners & a few workers
who really ARE the founts of knowledge you fancy as the norm. Though
frankly the MOST knowledgeable are among growers & hybridizers rather than
retailers. "Smart" retailers are the ones who know their way through a
Sunset Guide & don't try to fake it; that's honest at least.

Still, I've only slight doubt a similar list of people could be pulled
together that might well show some small element of truth to your sense
that it is among retailer workers (whose primary mission is sell stuff
other people grew) is where great gardening knowledge exists. Well hell,
I've been asked to come to work in local nurseries in three locations at
different times, when they were in need, & each time I turned them down
because I have my own business to run & don't need even a part-time job. I
might like to believe that if I had accepted any of these offers, then
there'd be a retail worker who knew a thing or two. But from your point of
view (on your bad-mood day at least) you might add me to the list above as
one more to prove MY point rather than yours.

Whether or not it were true that there are Doctors of Horticulture whose
goal in life was to become nursery retailers & succeeded at your boss's
nursery, & however nice that might be if you weren't exaggerating, it
remains that such knowledge isn't necessary to be a garden retailer
whether for Wal Mart or for Huge Independent Garden Center Incorporated.
Ability at the check-out counter PLUS a general capacity to water the
pansies correctly would be one trait ahead of the Lowe's garden managers,
but still not requiring even so little as a green thumb, let alone the PhD
you've conferred on the whole crew.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/