The Minnie Pearl Syndrome

 
In the landscaping world, just like any other profession, there are those little things that “do it yourself” guys do that make the pros cringe. They are our “nails on the chalkboard” experience.   I, like many of my colleagues, have my personal pet peeves. Let’s go through a few of them and hopefully you can gain some insight as to how a professional landscape designer looks at your landscaping.   By avoiding or correcting your landscape mistakes you will have healthier plants as well as knowledge that can give your home that extra something. This will make your neighbors stand up and take notice and hopefully show some of the guys who call themselves “pros”, why these things are not helping to achieve the goals of good landscaping. The topics we will discuss include:  Green Meatballs; The Green Necklace; A Whole Lotta Nothin; Seeing Red; The Minnie Pearl Syndrome;  Crape Murder; Runway Lights; Volcanoes; and The Real Thing.  We will be addressing these issues over the next several newsletters.   This month we will tackle “The Minnie Pearl Syndrome”

This refers to the practice of leaving the plant tags attached to the plant after it is installed.  Most folks do this because they want to be able to identify the plant. This is a good intention, but it is akin to leaving the price tags on your furniture or clothing. Not to mention that plastic tags will fade and paper tags will fall apart. A better alternative is to make metal tags and place them around a branch near the bottom of the plant. The best way to identify your plants is to make a map of the bed and write the plant information on it. This is an excellent system of keeping track of certain cultivars of plants like roses or daylilies.

Rick Rice