In article , "Mike Gilmore"
wrote:

The problem of poorly labelled plants can originate from several possible
sources. It is a problem but if you visit a place which does supply you with
good quality plants, with a healthy root ball at a fair price and your gripe
is with their labelling alone. Then I'd recommend that you bring your gripe
to the owner's attention and see how they react. There is no point
abstaining from an otherwise good plant source if you know the labels are
poor kind of shooting yourself in the foot. Buy the healthy plant at modest
price with a poor label, do some research and correct the label when you put
it in your own back yard.

A common miss-labelling problem which I do object to and which I regularly
come across at locations which buy-in in bulk is due to the meddling effects
of the marketing professionals. In an age when new homes and gardens for
first-time buyers are getting smaller, when such people have not the desire
or the time to research their garden plants as enthusiasts may do, they
simply want to buy plants of a certain size that does not crowd their living
area. As a result it is very hard to find a plant carrying a labels that
honestly declares the plant's ultimate size as 20 feet, that it will do so
in five years. Otherwise such plants would never be sold. Consequently most
advertised sizes are 4-5 feet height and spread or less.

I've seen this kind of "marketing" approach in even the most informational
tags, like those produced by Monrovia. A male shrub that produces no
berries, for instances, will nowhere mention it is a male plant, obviously
for fear of not being able to sell it to someone who wants it to have
berries. At the same time the female shrub's tag won't mention it needs a
male partner in order to fruit -- for fear some new gardener with a small
space, having insufficient room for two shrubs that'll get big, might
decide not to buy one at all since they'd actually have to buy two. Then
the new gardener wonders why the nice berries that were on that thing when
they bought it never again appeared. Exaggerating appropriate zones is
also common from growers who ship lots of stock great distances. One of
the local nurseries puts on auxillary tags correcting Monrovia
misinformation. Another nursery stopped carrying Monrovia product because
sales personel lied to them so often & it's a bummer to find out even the
nursery owner better research everything carefully before trusting a sales
pitch for a bunch of stuff that's going to drop dead at first frost &
seriously displease some customers. As we gardeners should support our
best independent nurseries, the retailers should support the best local
region growers first & foremost -- if grown right here, then it will more
certainly continue to do so.

-paghat the ratgirl

Regards,
Mike Gilmore
www.winsfordwalledgarden.freeserve.co.uk

--
"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/