ON PETALS AND PAGES

My trade is Ornamental Horticulture, which means that with the help of many others, I grow attractive plants to sell to homeowners and garden installers.
It is expected that I can advise on the choice of plants from a menu of many thousands of trees, shrubs, vines, groundcovers, waterplants, annuals, perennials and herbs; in addition to tree fruit, berries and vegetables.
 Not only must I know the plant material by both their scientific and common names but be able to speak to their future care and maintenance including the proper response to insect problems and plant diseases. If this was not enough,
 I venture into botany: to understand the magic of photosynthesis and enquire into their floral sex life. My idea of pornography is the close inspection of pollen on the virile anthers and the many varied forms of the receptive stigma.
It is all totally fascinating and I stand in astonished wonder at it.
 Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, fellow gardeners; I am ensorcelled by plants. I am smitten.

 Given the claims that I make in this preamble you will appreciate that I do not like to have plants libelled or slandered or the profession of horticulturist undervalued. In my  years of working in horticulture it was my privilage to meet many like-minded people, both as co-workers and as clients, some of whom were kind enough to suggest that I should write a book. I would thank them for their courtesy and smile, thinking of the many fine books that have been published in the last thirty years and doubted that I had anything original to say. In the 1980's I was trying to learn the herbaceous perennials and found Canadian Garden Perennials by A.R. Buckley published by Agriculture Canada in 1977 ; and nothing else until All About Perennials in the excellent series of gardening books from Ortho-Chevron in 1981. Since that time, as keen gardeners will know, there has been a deluge of helpful texts on all aspects of the subject. Canadians have been particularly well served by our native writers with knowledge of local conditions.