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By Rufino Osorio Reprinted from The Understory, Aug.-Sep. 2003 I recently was interviewed by a reporter who asked me to respond to the common criticism that native plants are an acquired taste. This was my response: If by acquired taste one means something that doesn't come naturally and has to be learned, then all horticultural and landscape preferences are acquired tastes. No one has to teach human beings to like sweet foods or to crave rich, fatty foods. This comes naturally to most people. However, we are not born desiring a semiformal garden landscape with lawns, foundation plants and a handful of specimen or accent plants. Such a gardening "ideal" is derived from European garden traditions and is not innate to human nature. If such garden landscapes were not an acquired taste, then we would expect different cultures to all develop such a landscape scheme, but that is not the case and the landscape tastes of various cultures, including Asian, Amerindian (e.g., Aztec) and lower income, rural Latin America, do not converge on lawns, foundation plants and accent plants. There are gardening trends that span across many historical time periods and cultures. Some examples of gardening trends and methods that are cross-cultural include the kitchen garden; the cottage garden (yes, the British version is the most famous, but, for example, my grandmother in rural Puerto Rico had a cottage-style garden utilizing tropical plants even though she had never heard of nor seen a British-style cottage garden); tropical slash and bum agriculture followed by fallow periods; and monoculture large scale farming (rice in Asia, corn in the Americas, potatoes in the Incan Andes, wheat in Europe and the Middle East, etc.). However, lawns combined with foundation plantings are not cross-cultural phenomena and you can be fairly certain that where such a landscape scheme prevails, western Europeans have been on the scene. The cultivation of plants for ornament has been around for at least several thousand years. But lawns are a very late horticultural innovation and were developed in the late 18th century in the garden landscapes of the British and French aristocracy. Native plants may indeed be an acquired taste... but so are lawns and foundation plantings! |
