Category Archives: Plant Diversity

Clearly, the oddity factor is enormously appealing for collectors of all kinds, from plants to model trains to stamps to tea pots. For many gardeners, collector-itis starts with the gotta-have-them-all phase in which we seek out every mainstream-available type of whatever it is we are fixed upon. However, if we truly get hooked, we then start seeking out the oddities; rare and unusual forms, colors, textures, sizes. It’s only recently occurred to me that the gardening community’s delight in diversity isn’t mirrored in many other places these days. It seems that, just as we gardeners love and determinedly collect weird plants, we also, generally speaking, are able to appreciate non-normative people more than the culture as a whole. Could this acceptance be in part based on the fact that many of us are at least a bit non-normative ourselves? Asking for a friend… Continue reading →