The Perfect Plant

July 1st, 2014

I thought I’d let you in on a secret this week – about the perfect plant.

Is fothergilla a perfect plant? No, but it’s very good…

Ready?

There is none.    So if you’re waiting to pull the plant-buying trigger until you find perfection, you’re in for a long wait. Either that or you’re going to end up disappointed.

One thing I spend a lot of time doing this time of year is helping people pick out good plants for their yard.

When I do Garden House-Calls, my goal is always to figure out what the gardener of the place will like, not just foist off on everyone the plants I happen to like. (Except for people who check the questionnaire box that reads, “I’ll take whatever you think is nice.” Those are the easy jobs.)

Plants are a very subjective thing, after all.

Some people absolutely adore forsythia and can’t imagine spring without its golden locks. Others consider it a 2-week wonder and a 50-week hulking weed.

That kind of subjectivity alone makes suggesting a “perfect plant” more like a crapshoot. But when you factor in the many other traits a plant can have – or not – nothing aces the perfection test.

What often happens is something like this. The gardener in question says he/she wants something that blooms (preferably a long time and fragrantly), doesn’t get bugs, takes shade, is native, and, of course, takes little to no care.

I’ll say something like, “How about a fothergilla? It’s native, fragrant in bloom, doesn’t get bugs or disease, has great fall color, does fine in shade, isn’t a deer favorite and stays compact enough that it’ll never need heavy pruning. Now it does put out some ‘suckers’ that you might want to dig out if you don’t want it to spread.”

Darned if that last line isn’t enough to kill the idea for some people. Or they’ll see a picture of fothergilla and say, “Well, that all sounds good, but I just don’t like the look of it.”

Put enough parameters on your choices, and you’ll eventually wipe out everything. If you’ve ever used one of those online plant-selection tools, you know what I mean.

What I’ve found is that the best we can do is weigh the pros and cons of each plant and go with the ones that end up with the most favorable mix.

Everything that I’ve ever run across has at least one or two cons. Nothing is perfect, but plenty of plants have way more “rights” than “wrongs.”

You’ll find about 300 choices that I think are some of the best (in general) for central Pennsylvania yards under the Plant Profiles section of this site. And you can download my entire 18-page, detailed list of “George’s Survivor Plants for Central Pennsylvania” in the Buy Helpful Info section.

What helps narrow the choice even more is giving weight to the factors that are most important to you. Is it bloom color? Is it compact size? Is it the unlikelihood of becoming deer food?

If one factor is important enough, I think it’s entirely justified that it be a deal-killer if it’s deficient in that department.

The spiky gum balls of sweetgum trees make it a deal-killer for a lot of people.

Sweetgum, for example is an excellent tree in many ways, but those unending gobs of dropping, spiky gumballs make it one of the most cursed species in landscapingdom.

Most of the time, though, it’s a game of tradeoffs.

Maybe you don’t like the leaf shape and the arching habit of something, but hey, if the plant is going to live, bloom, need no spraying and give you no trouble, it’s worth overlooking a down side or two.

It’s tolerance, I guess. Even a little forgiveness.

Come to think of it, that’s not a bad formula for people relationships either.